


Tiny Elephants

by SheAlwaysDies



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Abuse, Anna-centric (Disney), Answering Anna's question of if she'd be better off having had all her memories taken, Arencest, Axe!Anna, Blood, Dark Past, Elsa is what now?, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Gets a little easier to bear after the first chapter, Heavy Angst, ITCCSH readers can decide which fate was better (find that fic on ff.net), Literal icest I’m serious, Rated E for future chapters, Set in the same world as If The Cold Can't Stop Her, Sex, Sibling Incest, Smut, Tear Jerker, You will be sad, depictions of violence, dubcon, icest - Freeform, in progress, raws you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:29:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 56,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25519567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheAlwaysDies/pseuds/SheAlwaysDies
Summary: IN PROGRESS: After being struck by a forceful blast of magic, Anna's memory of ice and snow is so profoundly altered that she has no recollection of her older sister. As the next in line to the Throne of Arendelle, Anna is a solitary child until she comes across a voice locked within the castle walls. This story contains a relationship between ElsAnna.(please note this is my first time posting on AO3. Bear with me ;D You can find me and my other works on FF.net under shealwaysdies) This story is posted of FF and will update on both sites.Warnings: depictions of mental illness including anxiety/depression, mentions of sexual abuse.
Relationships: Anna & Elsa (Disney), Anna/Elsa (Disney), Anna/Kristoff (Disney)
Comments: 89
Kudos: 86





	1. Record

**Record**

It is her seventh birthday and in the morning she gets a kiss from her mother. Anna's mother is actually in her bedroom and it doesn't last long but it is the most the child has seen her out of her own room in a long time. It is the most exciting part of the day, even though the Queen does not stay long enough to listen to the song Anna tells her she has prepared. The redhead is lying but she could have handily pulled it off to win another few minutes with her absent mother.

Anna doesn't see her again for another long stretch but she has been told it is hard to get on your feet when you aren't happy or something like that. She doesn't exactly understand because a lot of times she is unhappy and still has to get up for class. Everyone thinks Anna is a very jovial little girl but she isn't really. In reality, she is just trying to keep things like they were not so long ago.

The Princess has lots of memories of her mother on her feet. She still remembers what it looks like when she smiles. But something changed years prior. From one moment to the next everyone was wearing black. When they told Anna what happened she assumed they were just playing a mean trick because the Princess does not know this person that died. She has no trace of who they could be within her recollection, so much so that she hears the name only once and then forgets it entirely.

It was not a trick because the black of that day isn't on people's clothes now but it is still very present. The Princess is young but she has learned that everyone is unhappy. Even the sky is unhappy on most days. Anna is sure that summer used to be sunnier. But her memory does not match up with her reality so she decides she is just that talented when it comes to make-belief. She stops relying on her past to paint hope for the future.

She really is good at it because that is how she passes the time now. And it helps, she grumbles less when she has to get up for class because she does not actually go. She goes into her own head. More days pass from when she knows things changed and they pass faster if she does not think about it.

Anna's mother mothers her from bed and because the Princess stops waiting for her to get on her feet she gets more time with her. The child crawls in under the covers and reads books to her mom. Anna tells her stories and lays near her warm body. Her mother cracks jokes and she smiles and she also kisses her only child. She lets Anna stay until her father is done for the day. He is King of Arendelle so sometimes that is well past midnight. He carries Anna to bed on those nights and she likes to make-believe he is the knight coming to save her from boredom.

Things are easier in the summers. The Princess has another birthday when the sunflowers are in full bloom and that means things are going to get gloomier. Fall is just a prologue into the cold of Arendellian winter. She tries not to be bitter because the bitter cold was once her favourite when she was five but now it's just so cold that the Kingdom even goes into a state of emergency.

The Castle fills up as if there was a ball but there are no bright colours. Save for Anna, she is always dressed like a doll but she is not aware of that until the other kids won't play with her. They call her Princess and they do not learn her name. Anna's mother tells her she is not like them. They are displaced, they are cold and scared. They are not playthings, the children are the Princess's subjects. Anna starts to understand that it will be lonely once she becomes Queen.

Under her mother's guidance, Anna does not try to interfere with the games anymore. She stays on the sidelines, dutifully waiting to be needed. She finds uses for herself because the castle is in an uproar. She makes friends with the staff as she helps them take care of those evacuated within the palace walls. People notice her more when she is giving them things. She takes that lesson to heart and the kids play with her up until the candy is down their throats. Once it is in their bellies the distance resumes.

Anna hands out clean laundry and takes families their meals. She earns a bit of responsibility and it takes time away from her mother but it also makes winter more bearable. At the first signs of spring, the castle starts to thin out. Anna is bigger than she was but growing up is making her feel smaller. Fewer people stop her to tell her how cute she is. Her mother doesn't force her to wear ribbons in her hair anymore.

The child gets better at reading and receives praise for how much she excels. She wonders what the point of stories is if they are nothing like real life. It reminds her of her memories because it all seems so intangible. Her life before the age of five gets more blurry as seasons change. The turning of time changes even her mother. The Queen always has a tinge of sadness in her eyes but she makes it out of the castle. As a family unit of three, they are all present at the summer harvest festival.

The weather doesn't hold, because in Arendelle there is always a chance of snow. Anna understands adults more and she can tell that her father is constantly preoccupied with beating the frost. It kills livestock daily and burns entire crops. There is always a family in need of refuge. Anna takes it upon herself to welcome them. It's her unofficial role in the castle because, during the unpredictable storms, her parents start to fight.

Her mother sneaks into her bed some stormy nights. Anna pretends to be asleep but she is very much aware of her mother at her back trying to force down her sobs. Anna wonders how the cold can be this powerful. The Princess gets so accustomed to this role that it no longer rattles her. She just goes through the motions.

Most days there is much not to do but roam the halls and work on her studies. She sings quite a lot because she doesn't really like silences. The tall walls of the castle are easy to fill with a song. It lures Anna's mother to her sometimes.

Anna plays the piano and most of the songs she loves are duets. The Queen plays the harp and her father doesn't know how to put his lips together to even hum. Anna doesn't have anyone to accompany her. She plays the songs anyway and doesn't quite understand why she can hear the second layer as if there was someone seated next to her. She doesn't know how to play those parts and her piano instructor scolds her when she stops playing her sets to play one half of the song in her head.

There is a day every winter that strikes the land more fiercely than any winter storm. The first time it hits the devastation is deplorable. The next year it hails down on the memorial for the lives lost. The tension following the King of Arendelle is hard to breathe around as the date approaches a third time. Anna learns to keep her distance and tries to make herself useful as preparations are well underway.

She gets caught under a lot of people's feet and is swatted away more than she is welcome. But she is determined because her mother is back to being stuck in Anna's bed. Her parents have been estranged for a week and Anna knows that if they can beat the storm things can get back to normal.

On the day of the storm, no one wants Anna around. She knows she should not let herself get frustrated and bites her tongue when she feels the urge to remind everyone that she has had a role in every evacuation. The Princess can still have a purpose. She has a learned independence that she applies to this situation.

The stress is mounting on every face in the overcrowded castle. There is a notable difference this year than during any other state of emergency. The children aren't playing. Anna knows that up in the attics there is a chest full of toys that no longer adorn the floor of her bedroom. So she goes off to retrieve them.

The higher Anna goes into the castle the fewer people there are. Light is being used scarcely so there aren't very many torches lit. There are long bouts of darkness. Anna shuts her eyes and runs until she can feel the heat of fire against her face again. She's sequestered a lamp and doesn't have much oil. The redhead waits until she's opened the hatch above her before she finally ignites it.

The Princess expects it to be a bit warmer up in the turrets of the castle. She has just been learning about how hot air rises with her tutor but it is as cold as the winter's threat up in the attics. Anna finds a pile of blankets right at the edge of the threshold and her endeavour is already a success if she returns with just these. They make a thud sound as Anna pushes them down into the corridor.

She keeps one for herself, for now, she will give it up when she rejoins her subjects. Anna is sure she would not survive up here if she didn't have it. The cold feels like blades on her exposed cheeks and hands. If this is what their people were up against, the Princess understands her father more than she ever has.

Anna is scared. She doesn't really have experience in the dark. Her lamp doesn't glow much farther than the length of her stride. She runs into a bunch of things except for the trunk she is looking for. The tall angled ceilings have a strange echo, her footsteps ring out even as she treads lightly.

The floorboards creak and her flames cast distorted shadows. She feels light-headed as if she was in the belly of an old trade ship. She's about to turn around. Her heart feels like it pounded too hard and got stuck within her ribs. Her light catches the pink hand-painted flower prints of her old trunk. Anna wishes she had not seen it because she was ready to run but she approaches it anyway.

She feels better once she's in the company of old friends but she's still a bit rattled so she doesn't turn the toys over. She just grabs them by the arm full and tries to get them to the door without stubbing her toes again. She moves them all in three trips and just lets them fall into a grand pile at the bottom of the pull-down stairs.

She goes back to shut her trunk. It crashes down and rings through the attic space like an alarm. Anna is so relieved to be done with her task as she rises to her feet. She's about to go but again she spots another ornate trunk. The chest matches the pattern on a door of an unused bedroom in her family's suite. It's painted by the same artist that commissioned Anna's trunk because the pattern is nearly identical. The tulips are altered into the shape of snowflakes and the colours are various shades of blue.

The two trunks are the only jovial looking things in this entire space so Anna blows a warm breath into cupped hands and opens it. She's disappointed that it's largely empty. There are a few sets of silk gloves inside and Anna is excited by the find. The material is awful for protection from the elements but any barrier is better than bare skin. The gloves are small. Child size and when Anna pulls one through into her fingers she feels like her throat is actually at her wrist. It is the most suffocating thing she's ever put on. She yanks it off and when she goes to pick it up she cannot take an even breath.

It's only half a dozen pairs of dress-up gloves so Anna thinks it best she leaves them be. Anna throws them back into the trunk and they land over the only other thing of interest. It's just a stuffed animal. Anna is pretty sure it was never hers. She would remember a penguin with a button eye and a cape. She leaves it buried and closes this trunk gently.

Anna lets out a sigh as she gets up onto unsteady feet. The release of her breath is met with a whisper. The Princess would have written it off as a call made up by her looming fear but it was paired with an inflection that wasn't frightful. It calls again with wonderment. Anna is terrified as it clearly puts together her name.

 _Anna is that you?_ It says now. Anna spins around with the lamp held closely to her face. The voice sounds like it is coming from every direction but it is nowhere.

 _You got big._ It says from behind her this time. She turns slowly now. It doesn't sound menacing but Anna is ready to toss her lamp at it if it approaches too fast.

"I'm nine!" She says because she is big and she is ready to mount an attack. The voice chuckles in retort. It isn't afraid.

 _I know,_ it says amongst its laughter. Anna wants to tell it to show itself but she also would rather forget that it exists. If she thought getting the toys was a good idea, this is a better one yet. The redhead takes one step back and the voice calls her name again. It sounds so devastated simply by wielding the two syllables. Anna's sea legs take her down the stairs faster than she has ever run.

The Princess pushes it out of her mind as she rejoins the frenzy in the castle. Families accept her tidings with grace. Children start to play. Anna is shaken but she is able to quell that sensation with the dissipation of stress. The storm never fully hits. The King holds out for an entire week waiting for the icy wind to bring its misery but it never comes. It is the start of a mild winter.

Anna does not think of the voice again until it comes to her in a dream nearing the end of winter. The snow has been melting and it makes dripping sounds in the mid-afternoon heat. The Princess is asleep in the reading room after spending her first morning riding horseback in months. She can hear the water drip onto the window sill. The voice pairs with each drop calling her name again. _A-nna. Anna._ It is not a nightmare but her heart does up the amount of blood in her veins.

The Princess wakes up with a start. Going on about her day and forgetting about the voice proves to be difficult. She knows for sure it had been just a dream. The part that scares her is that her dream was so different than that day in the attics. Anna knows that the dream is fake and that confirms what is real. By the time she concludes that nightfall is apparent. Anna dares herself to go to the attics next time she has daylight to spare.

She is incredibly bored. It has been weeks since she said she would go investigate the voice. She thinks about it every single day, several times a day but she always has an excuse. Currently, she is on her back with her feet kicked up on the grandfather clock in her father's study. She's watching the pendulum swing. When she starts clicking along with the passing of time, the King finally kicks her out of his workspace.

She heads for the attics. Mostly because she wants her thoughts back. The Princess hasn't been able to transport herself in a game or a book since her dream. Time passing quickly is the only thing she has going for her. Anna is waiting for a day. She does not know when it will be or what will happen but she knows at some point her life has to begin. It's the first day of summer and this is that day.

The attic is not at all cryptic in the daylight, but it is four times the size. It is veiled by the absence of direct light as if it is fogged over. The cold is still present. Anna is not prepared for the chill. She is dressed for summer, and every pore on her exposed skin is filled with ice. The cold is so real.

"Hello?" Anna calls out bravely. She wants to get this over with now. "I'm here again. Say my name if you are actually here."

Anna doesn't want to stay much longer. She knows where all the sunbeams are in the castle during a cloudless day like this one. She wants to run down to the drawing-room and lay on the red carpet and reheat her bones. She receives no answer and starts to leave.

 _I don't remember anymore,_ the voice says. It is the same voice Anna heard the day the storm was meant to hit. Anna can tell that in her dream she had distorted it. This voice is not menacing at all. But it is sad now, in a way it had not been before.

"Remember what?" Anna says. She wants to keep it talking so she can find the girl it belongs to.

 _Your name. I knew it and now I don't._ Anna is spinning around the entire room but she doesn't see where the voice could come from. Anna has learned the word insane and she thinks she might be that.

"Where are you?" Anna demands.

_In here._

There is only one here that makes sense to Anna and she looks down at herself. Her heart is beating in directions she has never felt it move. The voice is inside of Anna. She thinks maybe something about the cold in the attic lures it out.

"My name is Anna. What's yours?"

_I don't remember._

"I can give you a name," Anna is pretty confident with the offer. She's named hundreds of stuffies before. She names the faces in paintings and the fork, the spoons, and the knives. The Princess names the ducklings that are born each spring.

 _I wouldn't like that._ Anna is surprised that a voice inside her doesn't agree with every idea she has. It's a bit disappointing.

"I'm too cold." Anna states and she says goodbye to the voice by thinking up the word in her mind.

As the summer progresses, the biggest topic is the heat. It is the summer of Anna's memories and she spends most of her time riding. The sun even goes unobstructed by clouds. The Princess is old enough to be allowed at the seashore just outside the castle. Her free time is spent burning her skin until she cannot make out the freckles on her shoulders anymore.

When she falls asleep at night she feels like her skin is on fire. She is restless against the pain. On her third night without rest, she wishes for a snowstorm to take over the entire Kingdom so that she can finally get relief and maybe some sleep. Arendelle is the coldest place on earth in a snowstorm, but it has been months since the land has seen frost. There is only one other refuge, out of desperation Anna climbs up into the attics. The voice greets her as if she was a dog waiting for her master to return.

 _You're here,_ it is singing and its voice is such a sweeter sound than the songs Anna can make. The real sweet sensation is the feel of the cool air on Anna's fried skin.

"Will you stay longer? Tell me your name again? Do you know any good stories?" If this is a dog's hello, the puppy was now lapping at Anna's face, drooling for answers. It was begging sweetly in a way only dogs can.

"I want to sleep," Anna answers and the Princess makes herself a bed on the floorboards with the blanket and pillows she brought from her room.

 _I will watch over you,_ the voice says. It's just words but it sounds like a lullaby.

When Anna wakes she is roused by the sound of her name. It is calling for her persistently and at a distance. It sounds like dozens of different voices, each one singular to its owner and each calling out with its own level of concern. The most panicked one belongs to her mother.

 _Is that you they calling for?_ The voice asks as soon as Anna is sitting up. Anna rolls her eyes. She doesn't understand how the voice never learns.

"I forgot to wake up before them," Anna explains. Her eyes are still half shut and the cold is no longer refreshing.

 _It's best you do not tell them you've been here._ Anna agrees with the voice inside her head. She is almost too busy thinking up lies to tell her mother to realize the entire floor is coated in ice. When she sees the blue, her first thought is that she is not fully awake. The voice apologizes and Anna knows right away that the voice is not the one from her dreams. The Princess is awake and she is trapped in the attic.

"I prayed for a snowstorm!" Anna is overwhelmed by panic. But she has nowhere to go. The ice is thin and it cracks under her weight as she tries to get some sort of traction and make it to the hatch. She eventually has to crawl on her hands and knees to be able to thrust herself forward. The ice is thicker on the exit.

"Oh, Gods. What have I done?" Anna asks herself and not the voice. The girl is suddenly sure she is capable of making demands on ice. The first task she completed with this power is to freeze her entire Kingdom over a sunburn.

 _It is summer outside. The heat will find its way up eventually and disturb the ice,_ the voice reasons. _You won't be locked up here forever_.

"Arendelle is okay?"

_I don't know what that is._

Anna isn't so sure the voice is right. The cold here seems impenetrable but the Princess gives up seconds into her search for a different way out. The voice dismisses the chance that Anna will find an alternative exit. Something about the firmness makes Anna believe it is telling the truth. The girl has no other choice but to try to keep warm and pray the voice is also correct in saying the exit will thaw.

Anna puts her blanket and pillows in her old trunk and climbs up inside it. She shuts it onto herself. It is dark and scary but no more than the actual attic is. Nestled inside Anna can no longer hear the panicked calls of those looking for her and she can barely make out what the voice says. There is nothing for her to do but sleep.

When the Princess wakes she feels like her joints are frozen in the curled up position she is resting in. The trunk is difficult to open and once it is, a cold air assaults the humidity Anna built up around her. Anna crawls out of the trunk and is relieved to find the floor is the deep colour of redwood. She shakes out all her limbs and the movement becomes a little victory dance as she opens the hatch.

 _Will you come back?_ the voice asks.

"No," Anna responds. She is terrified of getting trapped here again. When she is back in the populace of the castle a guard is the first to see her. Anna gets dragged by the collar all the way into her mother's chambers. There the Queen holds fistfuls of Anna's clothes as she sobs into her daughter's chest.

Summer ends abruptly. The sunflowers do not get a chance to bloom. There are no fall colours. Only white. Arendelle is forced to ask for foreign aid. Housing within the palace becomes permanent for families who lost their livelihoods to the blowing snow. The Queen turns her depression into a school, which Anna is allowed to attend. She even gets to teach some of the younger children. Once the Castle changes into a haven it doesn't go back to the same emptiness. Anna isn't so solitary anymore but she is still very alone.

No one really wants to befriend the future Queen. Anna does not hold it against them anymore. She is overwhelmed with guilt. She has a secret. When Anna hears of lives lost she knows their blood is on her hands. She wished for the cold to come and the Gods granted her that wish. It does not matter how she spends her mornings repenting in the chapel. No one is listening to her anymore.

The Princess wants to confess but she has grown afraid of her father, who curses all things cold. His Kingdom is dying and Anna does not know what he would do if he knew his only child was to blame. Sometimes Anna thinks she deserves to be locked up in the attics. Instead, she strives for atonement and lets herself be of service to everyone around her. Her peers seem to figure that out quickly and she becomes subservient to all her classmates.

It starts innocent enough but she is seen as a doll to them. The boys like to play with her more than anyone. They have the most control over her. Mostly they just want to push her around. However, they force kisses. Anna, at times, finds herself enjoying the punishment. It does not matter what feels good in the moment because when she is alone it is clear that she is no closer to forgiveness. It is too cold out. The Kingdom struggles to find a way to function in the raging storm. All the Princess can do is keep trying and keep hoping that at one point her masters go far enough that Arendelle will thaw.

Anna wears the colour pink because she is told it will please one of the boys. He shows his pleasure through a snarl and heavy hands. Anna hopes this is the end of winter as all the kids gather around to watch the boy pull at the lace dress. There is so much laughter around her but Anna cannot really hear it. All her senses dim so that her skin may be empowered to feel more acutely. Anna decides she likes the cold more than the sweaty heat that runs along her body. Once she is alone the Princess is certain winter will end. There was no punishment worse than everyone watching her be touched by that boy.

The next morning the blizzard is still raging. Anna is awoken by the combative screams of her parents. Anna decides to face something she wished she would never have to again. She takes a thin blanket and heads to the attic. Surely being there is what the Gods wanted from her all along. Everything that has occurred between the start of the storm and this was not meant as a punishment but a push towards the justice the Gods actually seek. All the bad, the freeze, the loss of crops and life, the loss of commerce and of homes but more precisely the loss of Anna's innocence was actually a message. The Gods were telling Anna she belonged in the turrets. There was only one place in all of Arendelle that was meant to be cold. Anna decides she should be cast out in the attic.

Anna, the voice says before Anna is even fully into her new prison. Anna ignores it and moves to her trunk. She pushes it across the floorboards until it covers the hatch back towards the castle.

_Are you staying?_

"Yes," Anna tells the voice.

 _Do you want to build a snowman?_ it asks in song. Anna's head snaps up. The voice knows what she is capable of. But it is asking too much from her. Anna's wishes only bring destruction. The Gods were not granting Anna anything anymore, especially nothing as amazing as a snowman.

"No," she answers even though she wishes she did not have to decline. No one has ever asked the Princess to play before. Of course the voice, in the coldest part of her head, would tease her that way.

Anna just sits. She is good at just sitting. She has passed years of her life like this. She sits and she sits and she lets the silence hang. Other than the cold, this doesn't feel like a real punishment as it is a lot of the same. It might have been minutes and it might have been hours but the voice decides to speak again.

_What about a castle? We can build a castle._

"Without snow?" Anna says. Her interest is piqued.

_If that's how you would like it._

"This place could be a little homier." Anna ponders as she looks around. There are a lot of crates here. It's all really good building supplies.

 _I'll watch_ , the voice states. Anna gets to work. The voice does exactly as it says. It does not chime in as Anna struggles with heavy crates. She tosses a lot of their contents aside and starts building. Anna doesn't feel alone. She feels eyes on her. It makes her feel silly to think that the voice could have eyes. Anna uses up a lot of, what she assumes is, her first day in exile working on the castle.

 _I can't see you all too well when you go inside,_ the voice finally says. Anna had not thought of that, but she does not really know how to think of the voice. Her castle looks like a masterpiece, she's been learning about architecture after all. Anna's muscles are sore from putting it together, she isn't going to let the voice stop her from enjoying her creation.

 _Would you like it if I read to you?_ The voice asks Anna from outside the castle. Now that Anna is not moving as much the cold is creeping up on her more. It's been such a long time since her mother has read her a story. Anna has not indulged in time spent with her mother other than in class. With what the Princess has done to Arendelle, she is not deserving of the love her mother could now give.

"Yes," Anna says. She feels like a Queen within the walls of her castle. It feels so much better than the entire year she spent as a slave. The voice is a strong reader, she's picked something Anna has never heard before. It's complicated and is a string of poetic verse. Anna is too preoccupied realizing that the voice is not a part of her to think about what it is actually saying. It's beyond her comprehension and therefore outside of her.

"What are you?" Anna interrupts to ask.

_I am the Change of Seasons._

"Do you exist?"

 _I can't remember_.

Anna eventually grows hungry and she leaves her banishment to fill her stomach. She is used to the shame now. It has followed her since the start of the storm, while it weighs on her, she has learned to live with it. Though she is escaping what is meant to be her punishment, the Princess knows she will return to the attics.

The season does change. It is supposedly Autumn but the ground is awake like budding Spring. No one can believe that over an entire year of winter is over now. Anna is unsure if the change came from the boy's touch or from the voice. They both correlate, therefore she doesn't risk it. The Princess allows both things into her life. She spends her free time either on fire or frozen. When she is hot she feels sick and when she is cold she feels relief. Anna gladly allows both things to consume her, because Arendelle is back to life. It makes sense to her that the Gods demand a balance so that her Kingdom can choose its own temperature.

The cold becomes a friend. The voice, the most treasured thing in Anna's life. It reads to her and sings to her. It plays word games. It tasks Anna with riddles and even helps the girl with her schooling. Anna does not think about what the voice is much anymore because as she grows it becomes a necessity. Anna is afraid that if she learns more, the truth will chase all the good away. Anna does not think she could survive the world outside of the attic if the voice was not there to soothe her.

Anna is getting older now. The more she thinks of the voice having more than a set of eyes and a throat the more fear she gets about what the origin of her only friend truly is. It is easier to continue to believe that the voice is a broken part of her, a result of her loneliness coupled with her insistent need to escape the present. It all delves into pretend.

The voice is far from perfect. It forgets what part they were on in a story, and creates word puzzles that do not actually have answers. It forgets things Anna has shared with her and if Anna doesn't come as much as possible the voice resets, and it is like talking to a stranger. It never forgets Anna's name again and sometimes just says it over and over. At times when Anna just wants to run away from the boys that own her body, she wishes she could actually be alone again. For the most part, the voice can stay quiet when Anna asks, but sometimes it reminds Anna that it needs her and much as Anna needs the voice.

The voice never cries, the only emotion it shows freely is excitement. When the voice is sullen, Anna has to put on a show to raise it up. It isn't very hard to please the voice, sometimes Anna just has to show up.

When Anna arrives at her retreat with swollen skin and the taste of shame on her lips, the voice manages to alleviate the humiliation. It sings songs Anna has only ever heard flow out of her mother's lips. It listens as Anna describes how torn up her body feels and never makes the Princess reveal why. Anna speaks about the distance she feels between herself and her parents. The voice says but I will always be here and I'm yours. Anna is unsure if she deserves to have any power over such a pure and sweet thing.

 _I have something new, it says one day. For us_.

"Oh?"

_Are you ready?_

"For what?" Anna asks. Anna barely has time to react when a melody starts playing in the room. The song is layered by several different instruments. It's a recording. Anna's heard of them, she's begged her father for a gramophone for the last few months but has been hopelessly denied.

"Wow!" Anna exclaims because even though it has that same layer cloaking it that the voice has, Anna has never heard anything so fabricated sound so real. Anna begins to dance and the voice opens up into laughter. Anna is not sure which sound she enjoys more, the song or the contentment played by the voice's vocal cords. The Princess can hear light thuds that do not belong to the record but they follow the beat.

Anna joins in and together the voice and the Princess let their feet hit at floorboards. They sound like tiny elephants as their strength cannot rattle the grand castle but their bass makes an impact in Anna's eardrums. The music is sombre but the two fall out of pace with it. Their joy does not belong in a symphony. It belongs to them. Their dance is the closest they have ever gotten to one another.

The voice's movements feel like they are all around Anna. When they are above her, Anna almost feels like she is being touched. It is the softest touch she has received in a long time. Everything feels right until they are dancing to static and the voice speaks.

_Oh, Anna! You should see it. It's almost as radiant as the songs it plays._

There are a million different things that start flowing into Anna's mind that aren't instruments. Her mind begins to assault her with questions she had been refusing to ask herself.

"Where did you get it?"

_From where the food comes._

The voice is never very good at answering questions. Anna is lucky to get any reply other than I don't remember. Anna does not understand how something that is not tangible can own something as real as a gramophone. Anna cannot see how the voice's tongue is used for anything other than to fall on Anna's ears. Or how it can dance if it isn't human.

"Where are you?" Anna demands as she starts looking around the room frantically. She is moving all the crates, the trunks, the ornaments, the junk. Anna's turned this room over several times before looking for the voice but this time she actually feels like she needs answers. The voice is always moving. It never comes from the same spot. Anna had grown to assume the voice was the call of the cold. Anna always told herself that the cold cannot pick up books, but she never hears the pages turn. Anna told herself the voice knew the stories from memory. Yet there was no explaining how it could produce such music without the fingers to drop the needle down. There was no way they could share a dance.

"Where are you!?" Anna screams.

 _In here,_ the voice says again. _I'm in here._

"Tell me where you are. Tell me what you are!" The Princess is throwing boxes over her head. Her fingers pick at loose floorboards. Her entire body is slammed up against stone walls.

 _You are scaring me._ The voice punctuates its point with a cold breeze. Anna thought the cold was a part of her the same way she thought the voice was a part of her. Those thoughts dismantling make her feel as bad as when she is under the touch of a boy.

"Did I set off the last winter?" The Princess asks.

_No._

Anna leaves vowing never to come back. The blood she feels was on her hands has been washed off. The guilt leaves her and is replaced by pain. All the punishment Anna has endured was really meant for the voice. If that voice belongs to a real living being, in whatever capacity, then it is the one that altered that one summer. Anna was never really the one to blame.

Anna has an almost-boyfriend. A boy that leads all the others. He has searched her out. When he finds her alone and upset he uses his body to comfort her. Anna has only been letting this happen to keep the cold at bay. This is the first time she is touched and doesn't have the feeling of her noble cause to comfort her. She does not have the comfort of the voice to ease the pain. The Princess has kept this up just in case, but knowing it was all for naught makes her want to tear at the sore flesh between her legs. It's lucky she found out now. She will be thirteen soon, and from what she's learned in health class this punishment is close to becoming dangerous.

Anna wonders what the voice would think. If it even knew the consequences of its actions. Did it know people had died? Did it know what Anna had subjected herself to? If the voice is a real thing Anna could touch, she would take her revenge on it. Dress it in blue, because that was what Anna liked, and spread its leg apart. She would dig her teeth into its cheeks so that she could taste its tears and skin. Anna would tear it apart from the outside in, and break down its cold with her heat.

It starts to snow sporadically, flakes that are windswept before they fall to the ground. They do not cause any damage. The Kingdom is on edge. The King is already deep into precautionary methods. Anna knows it is the voice calling her. The Princess does not take the bait. She is busy trying to undo the attention of the boys. Her boyfriend does not react kindly to being told _no_ after almost two years of falling on her back for him. Soon the Kingdom is talking more about Anna than it is about the threat of the frost. Anna's parents are in a room together for the first time since the snow started to address the rumours that the heir to the throne is a whore. Anna has no defence except insanity. The Princess is all the things they say she is.

Anna celebrates her birthday on her way to reform school. She crosses the Southern Sea for the first time in her life. Even without a chance to confirm, Anna is distinctly aware that the moment she set sail, the snow started to fall. The voice has changed the season to cold. As Anna floats away it becomes clear to her that the voice is triggered by the Princess. Maybe they are both killers, she thinks. The blame and the blood are shared.

The Princess has some control over winter. Still, she did not fight hard enough to stay. Anna did not want to have to force herself back into the attic. She did not want her role in the blizzards of the past to continue to torment her. She carries that burden with her, etched in her skin and will likely never let it go. Everything she has done to remedy her missteps is the reason her mother and father cast out of her home. The forces of nature are not the will of the Gods but bend to the force behind the voice. Deity or demon, Anna does not kneel to the voice. Her drivers are the Gods, and they do not have a hand over the Princess like Anna believed they did. As Anna gets further away, she absolves herself of Adrendelle.

**111**

**For anyone who has been following one of my other stories "Equal Parts of a Whole" this is a little present for you while you wait for my next update. I believe I am going to be unable to post as consistently over the next week or so. I have most of this story complete, it just has to go through edits and be wrapped up.**

**Tiny Elephants will have one or two more chapters to hold you over until I am back in my own space and can give EPOAW the attention it needs.**

**I hope you enjoy it! And as always if you leave a review or a PM expect to hear back from me!**


	2. Riddle

**Riddle**

Corona is celebrated for its alliance with the God of the Sun. The rays of the giant star reflect off of any structure making the entire nation gleam and glow. Corona is the colour gold and gold is warmth. The nation is covered in luscious greens, which are never threatened to wither. The bellflowers that bloom widely in every crack and corner are a variation of yellow and purples. The trifecta of colours makes Arendelle's flag look mute in comparison. Anna cannot recall the last time a crocus was able to bloom in her homeland. The emblem of the sun becomes her favourite thing in the world. As long as the sky is blue, the sun takes away all thoughts of the voice.

This is a new kind of heat. It burns down, but it doesn't actually come in contact with the Princess. The lack of friction on Anna's skin is freeing. Coupled with the bright colours of the cityscape, Anna feels that she is lighter in Corona. The bright colours she wore in Arendelle, that made her look so unlike the people of her nation, are dull compared to the vibrant tones of her new homestead. The grandeur of her clothing pales in comparison to the brightness the people of Corona adorn themselves with. Anna is less of a Princess here.

Anna hears news that Arendelle lost all colour to white. The condition of her land was exactly as Anna expected. The voice has lashed out in her absence. A whiteout blizzard has overtaken the small nation. The fjord is completely frozen over.

Only the Military is equipped to brave the ice. They traverse the frigid cold only once a month to supply the entire Kingdom. Arendelle survives by selling ice that doesn't seem to ever melt. It is the only thing keeping it from collapsing. Their Princess is not sure if she would be able to reverse the cold, not after abandoning the voice yet another time. However, she is done feeling guilt over it. Anna has carried the weight of the storm for far too long. She is not the one in control of the voice and takes no blame. Anna herself warned her parents that her absence in Arendelle would benefit no one. Anna was only slightly wrong. Even in her strict reform school, Anna is happy in Corona.

At school, Anna mostly learns about the Gods. Every day the school's pupils are reminded that they have failed these all-powerful beings. Anna isn't moved by the stigma the pious are sowing. She knows how consuming that shame can be. She has no intention of buying into it again. If the Gods ever did anything for Anna, she chose to believe that they liberated her. They orchestrated an elaborate plan that broke her down to the bone until she no longer held onto anything that happened to her in the past and was free to relieve herself from Arendelle.

She should have known that that was the answer. It worked well for her as a child. When she stopped reflecting on happier times, Anna had been able to find new and creative ways to get the company of her mother. This is exactly like that choice. Letting go of Arendelle is allowing Anna to bloom. The Princess is the only one of Arendelle's crocuses to survive the winter.

Her reform school does not see her as a budding flower. She is a stain to their scriptures, a harlot with only one route to redemption. The King of Arendelle is using his depleted coffers to ensure he gets a suitable heir in return for his investment. One of the most rigorous parts of the curriculum teaches the school's lost girls by showing them how to bear up arms for their higher powers. Preach and besiege.

It seems out of character for Corona to house such a school. Its private studies go beyond nations as the girl's pledge themselves allies only to the Gods. Anna recites her oath with her fingers crossed. She knows the more she bends to her instructors the closer she will get to the infantry. There is something calling Anna to hold a weapon. She does not know who she wants to fight for. It is not the Gods and it is not Arendelle. She is almost sure she doesn't even want to fight for herself, after all any retribution she would want to take on her behalf was not focused on the boys that prodded at her. She had freely given them access to her body after all. The only other victim Anna can reap is the voice but Anna has no intention of returning home and exacting that revenge.

Still, she trains her body harder than any of her classmates. She is not naturally the strongest, she is certainly not the largest or the fastest. But the Princess of Arendelle is the most persevering. Anna takes to it well. Her school doesn't hand out praise but she receives less and less punishment the more her body aches. At night when all the girls are talking amongst themselves, Anna steals away whatever rest she can get. Nights are only easy for her if her body can hastily succumb to exhaustion. If she cannot sleep she thinks of the voice. Her wandering mind breaks away at her purpose, even though she has not really found one yet. The Princess sneaks out in the dark to run laps. When she is out of breath her mind can only focus on lifting her knees and propelling forward.

Anna relies on fatigue. It is a double edge sword of its own. This is a pain in her body that she can actually control and she welcomes that. Her more scholarly studies suffer as a result. The balance her school is trying to drill into Anna is off-kilter. The Anchorite's that school her often have her stretch her hands out for a few lashes. She is the most punished of the students when it comes to her religious studies. It is hard to memorize things with such a lack of interest and when it hurts her muscles to sit still. Anna takes the penalties willingly. It builds calluses on her hands that she will utilize when sparing.

The Princess of Arendelle is of the few girls willing to take up a weapon. She does a lot of research and when the time comes she does not hesitate as she nears a table. Laid out before her are many crafts she can choose to hone. The first to speak to her is the axe. It is a weapon highly regarded in her homeland. Anna has spent hours of her childhood fantasizing that the suits of armour at the bottom of the stairs would come to life and wield their halberds in her honour.

The table presents her a variation of this tool and she is drawn to it because out of all the weapons, the long-shafted axe is by far the largest offered to the girls. Anna runs her fingers up the staff trying to imagine her body having the fortitude to lift the intimidating weapon. The Princess has nothing else to do with her life but to work up to it. So she selects a peasant axe. Mostly because she is surprised to see it's craned neck amongst the others. As if her instructor has deliberately placed it there for her. The Norwegian crescent moon shaped handle coupled with the titled ironwork blade is something Anna has seen at the hilt of many of her nation's warriors.

Anna's battle instructor has taken an interest in the redhead. She does not have to look up at him to see his agreement when she takes up the axe. They have a conversation about it without exchanging words. Anna feels poised and ready to dedicate herself to something as if one day this weapon in her hand will alter the course of her life. She's read it in all the adventure stories of old. If a character picks up arms it will be used pivotally. Anna is eager for things to change for her.

The things she misses about Arendelle are here, at her disposal. She mounts horses and is taught how to use them in battle. She even finds that receiving mail from her mother holds her over. Even though the letters take over a month to make it home, Anna's distant relationship with the Queen does not feel all too altered when only shared on a page. While she can still steal away into solitude, she finds that she does not grieve being alone. The hollows inside of her are not too deep to fill.

Life is easier under the strict rules of her school. Anna learns that when she eases up on her focus that her peers actually know her name. None of them call her Princess. They do however note that she is solitary and few girls try to break down that barrier. Anna does not know how to make a friend. The girls are forced to unify, the school only lets them within the vicinity of males if they are instructors. Most girls have been sent away for similar situations as Anna. Anna learns she is the youngest amongst them, and she is relieved when that doesn't strew any animosity towards her.

Anna looks around at her peers and she does not see a group of tramps. As the girls talk more there seems to be a recurring story. Anna is of the few that asked for the attention they received. Anna starts seeing the faces of the men the girls have described during late-night chat sessions as she sharpens her weapon. When she confides that to one of the girls, she earns the respect of the others. Anna still does not have a purpose but she has skill and she slowly has a family. Soon she even has accolades. As she grows so does the size of her axe.

Anna falls in love at the age of 15, with a girl that will never love her back. But they share a bed sometimes. When she is close, Anna loses her inhibitions. She starts to feel like she has found a keeper to her deepest secret.

"What did she talk about?" Anna's would-be lover asks.

"Me." The Princess says plainly. But she does not like that answer so she adds, "it liked to sing and read. And would make up riddles." It feels nice to reminisce. Anna does not think she has looked back at her life in Arendelle fondly, even for a singular moment, since hitting the shores of Corona.

"The last one it told me went something like,  _ at midday I am the same shape and size of an elephant. By nightfall, you can longer see me. I am always weightless _ ." Anna left Arendelle before ever bringing the voice the answer. She has never given it a second thought. A silence drops between the pair as they both mull the wordplay over.

"She was real but you never saw her?" The girl in her arms moves on. It's the second time she asks a question like this as if she is running it over in her mind.

"I can't answer that. I honestly don't know."

"Maybe she could see you from above? And that's why her voice could move around so quickly." Anna is taken back by the suggestion. She is transported to the attic, a room she feels is ingrained in her memory. It feels like an impossible suggestion but every answer is.

"I never thought about that. I assumed the attic couldn't go any higher. I could never think that clearly in the cold." The Princess does not want to admit that she had forbidden herself from reflecting on the voice too much. The dark does not veil that to the girl in her arms. She presses further.

"So she's out there holding all of Arendelle captive right now because you left?"

"If I was there I would stop it. You've seen me advance in-field training. One day it will get my halberd-" Anna has to let go of the girl to make a slicing action. She is boasting because she wants to look powerful. Anna cannot imagine ever going back, but she likes the concept that she might be seen as a knight.

"But she loves you."

"Where did you get that idea?" As she sits on the arms of the unrequited, Anna is sure no one is capable of truly loving her.

"You are all she has."

"What it has is the power to kill with it's cold." Anna stops seeing the point of this conversation. The voice has no face that Anna knows of. Not only that she's hostage to a place Anna can't bear the thought of returning to.

"You think because you train with the heaviest biggest weapon that she couldn't turn that power on you the moment you come face to face with her?"

"I don't think it would hurt me." It is another thing Anna has never considered until now. She does not need to think of it much to believe it is true. As she makes that statement Anna lets herself consider that there may be some sense to the concept that the voice loves the Princess of Arendelle.

"Then why are you so ready to hurt her?"

"For Arendelle," Anna says because that is what a Knight would say and vow. Anna feels like she is in over her head, has shucked far too much because she is starting to see herself in the attic. In her mind, she is not a child anymore but the tiny warrior she sees herself as now.

"Can't you just love her instead?" There is one all-encompassing reason Anna laughs at that.

"No, I love you." It is not the first time Anna has been this bold.

"Anna. There quite possibly is a girl, who has been locked away for years and you haven't stopped to think that she has a captor? She is dangerous. I understand that. But what good has it done Arendelle to keep her locked up? Who is benefiting from it and why? I don't know if you are capable of love if you dream of killing the thing that gave you comfort when the rest of the world rejected you."

The girl that Anna loves keeps her distance from the Princess. Anna cannot let go of her emotions as easily as the older girl has suggested. The denial of Anna's feelings is cruel but as more time passes the point is made. Anna feels the abandonment when she seeks out the girl and gets nothing. The pain Anna feels to be brushed off by her love is akin to the pain of winter Arendelle suffers from. Anna thinks of the answers to the questions posed. And comes up with one.

"I need your help to get kicked out of school," Anna asks the girl. In an unlocked closet, they share kisses and let their skin meet where their uniforms have come undone. Anna knows the girl is indulging her to give her strength, to prove to Anna how deep love can go. The Princess has never felt better, she is at the height of her pleasure when they are interrupted by their instructor. The girl has fulfilled her purpose in Anna's life. She has with one conversation turned Anna's back towards Corona.

Anna is kicked out of school. It was planned, but she had not prepared herself for the shame of it. The Anchorite's that have taught her over the years harden at the sight of her, it reminds her of the jeers she received back home. She finds herself laughing at the idea that Arendelle is home when Corona is the only place she has felt soothed by. The Princess wants to admit to her combat instructor that she never wielded her Axe for the Gods. She did it for lots of smaller reasons, like his praise. He cannot look her in the eye but he quietly and clandestinely gives her a peasant's axe, in the same way, he had nudged her to that weapon in the first place.

The Princess is escorted back home in a brigade of twelve men. They move ahead of the cargo meant for Adrendelle's shores and traverse the ice that surrounds the palace. Anna barely needs the help of the military entrusted with her safe retrieval. Reform school has trained Anna to care for herself in a way that goes beyond the amount of child-rearing she did on her own.

Anna adapts the use of her axe to help get traction on the ice. The cold doesn't bother her as much as it does the men whose job is to bring things from the open ocean into the fjord. Anna finds a bit of pleasure being back under the influence of ice. She never thought she missed the cold while she exposed the heat of the sun. As her thick skin breathes in the cool air she welcomes the sensation. She is hopeful Arendelle will be free soon. As the cold wind blows against her, the Princess feels as if she can hear a distant calling of her name.  _ A-nna. An-na. Anna. _

When Anna arrives at the castle it is no longer anything like home. It feels like a city all on its own. Most of the Kingdom now lives in the sanctuary of the Palace. No one recognizes the Princess, and in her travel clothes with her weapon strapped to her outer thigh, she doesn't scream Royalty. She gets the same looks she gets in Corona and Anna is saddened that it won't last.

The Queen no longer runs the school. No one sees Iduna out of her room. She has succumbed to that sadness again and is not present to greet her only child. The King does not embrace his heir. News of her dismissal did not sit well with him. She is worse than a whore. Anna is a malkin, whose disease cannot be corrected. The Princess of Arendelle is a degenerate and her father treats her as such as he turns his back on her.

Anna does not let herself fall into the loneliness of that rejection. She has come home for things much more important than her parents. If she can stop the voice she will be able to move freely from the Castle to Corona. She will prove herself to the girl in her heart. She will be the revered Hero of Arendelle. It is not her main motivation but a benefit nonetheless, the will to become worthy of the love of her father, pull her mother on her feet. The central and most imperative thing is that she will earn the hand of the girl that is her real true home.

The first opportunity she gets, she heads to the attic. When she walks the once solitary corridor she sees it has been remade into apartments. People have used this hallway so much the carpet is worn. There is no money in the treasury to replace it. Money has been invested in making more space for bodies in the castle. There is a wall right before the access to the attics and no obvious way up from here. The castle Anna once knew every corner of is no longer home. The Princess has no access to attics from any known direction.

The Princess scours her memories trying to draw a floor plan of what was once the Palace and what has replaced it. She finds herself in a space she never bothered to explore much. It is much like the corridor in the other direction. As Anna approaches she is certain she has found a way to get to the voice. But there are voices here she recognizes. They belong to boys even though they've changed into men. Anna does not doubt who they are, for she has heard them at their lowest guttural grunts. These men used to own her. She's armed but still, she cannot go forward. Anna runs away.

There is no more safe place to go. Her room is not hers anymore. The only refuge she can think of is the attic. The Princess ends up in the Queen's suite. Her mother's skin is as pale as ice. The freeze is killing her. Her cheeks are all sunken in and she lays in bed as if she's a monument. The Queen says nothing, stirs not a bit, as Anna calls out for her "Mommy."

Anna sits at the edge of the bed. Her mother's eyes are open but the Princess does not know if she is awake or not. Anna is suddenly angry and she loves the feeling because it overpowers the part of her that just ran cowering.

"I'm going to save you, mommy," Anna promises, because she is stronger now, she knows better now. She might not be able to get to the attic if she has to get through those men but she will find another way. Arendelle is a wasteland that could not be described by a merchant's stories or even a letter penned by the world's best poets. She gives her mother a kiss before she goes to leave.

"I've missed you," the Queen musters. Something inside tells Anna that her mother doesn't mean her. She's talking to someone else.

Anna's new accommodations are in the women's dorms. Although Anna does not have the clothes of a Princess, all eyes are on her. The last time Anna was in Arendelle she was branded as a harlot. Anna knows the faces of some of the girls who joined in on her torture back then. Anna recognized that this castle is now more their home than it is hers.

The Princess curls up into her bunk and starts writing love letters to the girl who refused to keep Anna's heart in Corona. It doesn't feel as medicinal as when Anna sought the voice out for comfort years ago. She writes to the girl about her travels at first. As she forwards the state of her homeland, it occurs to Anna that the destruction to Arendelle is beyond anything that has happened here before.

She does not want to write it down but keeps her pen to the page. She notes that maybe the voice is in as poor health as her mother is, but it could also be it is no longer here. If the voice really was a captive, it could suffer from punishments. The state of the nation is something to be birched for. It makes Anna sick to imagine, someone else exacting revenge that belongs to Anna on the voice, just as much as it hurts to think of someone causing it pain.

Anna knows she has to get her hands on the voice. She is still unsure if she will have to use force or love to reverse the damage to Arendelle, but she cannot let her fear stop her from reaching the attic. In her baggage, she has one dress remaining from her time as Princess. Anna undresses with the eyes of her bunks mates on her and laces the front ties under the scrutiny of their half-veiled insults. The Princess has grown, so when she is finally in the gown, it screams out the names the girls have always called her. She takes a breath knowing that she has become who she once was if she wants to meet the voice.

She isn't invisible anymore, not with the top skin of her breasts exposed, not with the deep dark greens of her gown being the only pop of colour in the castle. Anna makes her way down the unfamiliar hallway. It is the barracks made for the single Arendellian men. It is overcrowded and Anna is not surprised how the grandeur of the castle has eroded from their presence. She knows how acid a man can be, how simply they can strip something of its beauty. Anna's childhood home never seemed fragile, but it looks crumbled and decayed. Even the newly erected walls suffer that fate. Anna knows better though, the state of the Castle is as if it's immunities have been compromised by the cold, the men are nothing but like viruses attacking an already compromised structure. The real sickness is the voice.

Some men leer at the Princess with smacking lips and wide eyes, other's freely cast their words. Anna tries to ignore it so she can rework her knowledge of the castle. It is almost too altered to piece together. But a cold draft guides her further down the rooms until there is no denying that the access to the attics is behind a certain door. Anna knocks.

She does not know the man on the other side. He lets her in, stumbling over himself. There are four beds crammed into a small space, Anna's heart is pounding because she sees the access in the ceiling. It looks exactly how she remembers it with one fatal difference. There is a large padlock sealing her out. Anna can see it is iced up. She tries not to stare at it. Anna is the one being stared at.

The man has kind eyes that shine even without a window to bring light to the room. His hair is dirty blonde, and other than his square chin, everything about him is curved and soft. He's alone and his smell is strong. Anna actually finds it calming. It reminds her of mucking out the horse stalls at the school in Corona. Anna almost forgets she is here to offer sex as a sedative.

The man has his hand on the back of his neck, he seems to be wincing over the thick air Anna has brought into the room with her. He's bouncing on his heels. There isn't a thing the Princess learned in Corona that can make her stronger for this. She has never once asked to be touched, she only ever granted access. Anna wonders if this was any other man would be pulling at her already.

"Does this lock?" she finds herself asking. The man has to push his way past her to make the doorknob click. "Thank you."

"Can I help you?"

"Yes," Anna says, and for a moment she wants to ask for a boost up. But she knows better than to trust anyone. "I've been asking around for you. I can believe I'm finally here. I saw you the other day, and I didn't get the nerve to come up and talk to you."

The man's jaw drops, he isn't much older than her. She can tell that now that he looks at her dumbfounded. It's a childlike reaction. Still, he has the build of a man, no matter how much he shrinks under her gaze. She's feeding him things she has read in books. Anna does not know how to court him, but she knows that storytellers have all the answers.

"You… you know who I am?" he asks. Anna does not want to know his name. She knows his face and that's more than enough. If she's lucky she can block all the rest out and only get to know the feel of his hands.

"Yes. I've watched you at the stables for some time. but I would never be allowed to approach you. Not when others could see." It is a well-crafted lie formed without thought. Something she read in a book once. The man is starting to make better guesses about who the girl in his room could be. He has not picked up his chin. His eyes go wide. His hand claps over his mouth.

"Are you some sort of Lady? Duchess?"

"I'm the Princess of Arendelle." Anna's reputation precedes itself. She can see it plainly. This man-boy has heard the stories that must keep her father up at night. His shocked face blushes shades of red that Anna is used to seeing in Corona for less ruinous reasons, like staying out in the sun too long. It's her chance, she wants to swallow the spit in her mouth, to take a deep breath and shake out her limbs, but she remains steadfast. Anna knows that there is a reward when this is through. She steps closer into the room. There aren't many strides one can take in the small space. One more bold step forward and Anna's chest is brushing against this man's vest.

"I think I fell in love watching you," She says as she grabs hold of his tawny coloured eyes with hers. She knows she is not going to be denied. She's spent enough hours talking to her peers back in Corona to know she is holding all the aces in the deck. She puts her hands on either side of his face. The skin there is soft as if he has never once had to pass a razor on his skin. He's the one that swallows as she crashes her lips on his.

The last person she kissed was the love of her life. Anna focuses on that rushed feeling of teeth knocking together she had then as she laces her tongue into this stranger's mouth. His hands are still dropped dead at his sides and he responds to her with great hesitation.

"You aren't dreaming," she says against his lips. It coaxes him slightly, he bows his head, and the tips of her toes are allowed a reprieve as she is able to drop her heels back down to the ground. One hand goes to her hip as she continues to persuade his tongue. When he hums against her she feels the warmth of his breath enter her at the same time the temperature around them starts to drop.

She wants to run away, but her body is that of a warrior. This is just a battle she tells herself. Her body is just a weapon. She rather use her body as a tool than this be a punishment. Anna is not her younger self anymore. She does not have a path to redemption, she has a path to glory. She pushes the man off of her, and their lips click from the abrupt disconnection.

"Turn around," she commands. She has never had any power in these situations before. His back facing her makes her feel brave. She lets herself inspect the attic access as she works on the front laces of her gown. Anna is certain she can make her way up. All she needs is her axe. When she drops her dress down to the floor she reveals the weapon at her thigh. If she knew that she could extract the voice today, she would use the butt end of her weapon and drop it over this unsuspecting man's head. She knows exactly how to hit him to take him to the ground.

Instead, she just tucks her axe under the fabric of her clothing and clears her throat. She's only wearing a scant bodice and a pair of underwear. There is no detailed work on the garments, but they are bleached white. Anna has seen the girl she loves in this exact school-issued attire and she knows that the plainness of it is arousing.

The look of shock does not wane from the stranger's face. He is trying to rub the sweat off his hands on the front of his pants. Anna hates how slow this is moving but she can see the boy is terrified. She wonders if she looked like that, years ago, and if the boys that touched her were as undeterred as she is now. Their goal might have been humiliation and pleasure, while hers could result in relief for an entire nation, but the look on the stranger before he tells her he is at her mercy. Anna wonders if there is a way other than prayer that she can find penance for pushing him.

It isn't hard to get him moving against her. Still, she is surprised that arousing him is a long tedious process. He is almost like a distrusting mare, bucking at her wildly, wanting to evade, attack, and be saddled. She breaks him down until she is in full control of the reigns. He whispers words of misgivings and pause, but they faded away in his own pleasure. Anna is pleased that she gets to decide how to move against him. Her body feels free to enjoy the sensations without the feeling of having a knife at her back. There isn't a thing Anna does to him that she has not been pushed to do before. She feels her own pleasure from doing it on her own accord. When this man inevitably regales his conquering of the Princess of Arendelle, he will not leave out the detail of her expertise.

"Is this real?" the stranger asks once they are both on their backs. He seems wide awake. Anna has never been in this position before. Mostly the boys that touched her liked to drop their weight on her and drift off into their dreams, or turn their backs to her for the rest of the night.

"I didn't think it was possible," she feeds into the narrative as she adjusts herself to rest on his shoulder. He's still fully clothed. The material of his shirt is starchy. She puts her weight on him to encourage him to lay down fully.

"I keep pinching myself," he laughs in his own disbelief. He's smiling widely. His excitement is sweet and very unwelcome. "I'm supposed to be at work," The realization is an opening for Anna. She lets go of her hold of his waist.

"Oh Gods, I'm so sorry. I can't believe I just barged in here like that. I'm going to get you in trouble with work. What was I thinking? I must have disrupted everything."

"It's fine, please, no need to panic or anything. I'm sure I can think of something to say. I just hate to leave you," both he and Anna start to move away from each other. The stranger is trying to arrange himself but his mind is clearly muddled. He is mostly moving aimlessly back and forth, eventually reaching for Anna's clothes.

"No!" she spits. "Please don't worry about me. I can hang back and get dressed. It will take twice as long as what we just did to get that thing tied up on me again. You go, and I promise we will meet again."

"I can't think straight. I keep thinking your name is something but I know that it isn't that. And I'm so overwhelmed I can't come up with your actual name." The stranger is so flushed, his chest is still heaving the way it was when Anna was on top of him. He looks like he is running on adrenaline.

"Anna." the Princess responds. She is curious why he would get a different name stuck in his head but she does not want to press any subject but his departure.

"Yes, of course, I knew that."

"I'll come find you," Anna seals that vow with a kiss. The stranger laces up his shoes and goes. As soon as he is on the other side of the door, she clicks it shut again. She takes no care in doing up her gown. She pushes one of the bunk beds into the centre of the room and uses the height to gain the leverage she needs to reach the hatch. Anna runs her fingers along the cold of the lock. The pads of her fingertips stick to the cold.

Anna knows that as long as she keeps that stranger in her life she will have access to the attic. If the voice is still settled within the cold of the attic, Anna will continue to pay the toll. With both hands on her axe, the Princess hits the lock. Her precision and her strength drop the barrier down with one mighty swoop. Anna does not balk as the cold starts pouring out of the room. She opens the hatch. The stairs have been removed. Anna has to gain leverage to pull herself up. She can barely stand in the area anymore. The Princess can feel the hairs on her head graze the roofline now. All the junk that used to take up space has been removed. The only things left behind are two ornate trunks. Anna knows them instantly, they are what called her up to the attics in the first place.

"Are you here?" The Princess's voice breaks the quiet. "I'm back." She says without pause.

"I can feel the cold, I know you are here. Answer me. I'm here." Anna paces the room, she lets her feet fall heavy on the floor planks.

"I'm here now." Anna stops at the center, the silence makes it feel like she has been in the cold for hours.

"The answer is a shadow. You are an elephant's shadow."

_ You've gotten big. _


	3. Rumors

**Rumours**

Come morning the small breakfast table in the Royal Suites is always set for four. The empty seat across from the Princess is and has always been like a slap to the face. It is a constant reminder to Anna that she is not enough. A message that Anna was never meant to be the lone Heir to Arendelle. To Anna, the spot feels like it is meant to be filled by someone. Anna always assumed it would be filled by a boy, one that would override her position as firstborn and take the mantle. As if the clean plates, empty water glass, unused serviette and lineup of utensils were spread out in front of what is actually the Throne of Arendelle.

Her mother sits to Anna's right and her father lowers himself to left. The empty chair is opposite the Princess. Breakfast is the only meal the Royal Family attempts to share together. Sometimes Anna's mother cannot make it out of bed and sometimes the King cannot spare a half-hour. But Anna always takes her seat at the table. She is the only one that always shows up. The son that is meant to one day come never does. The throne stays empty.

Anna knows how to fold napkins into different shapes. She can make boats, and frogs, swans and crowns. Since she is not allowed to play with her food, she uses the cloth napkins instead. Anna gets to use the extra serviette from the needless table setting to remake her designs. When she is left to eat her morning meal on her own she collects all four napkins and uses them all to make more complex designs.

When the dishes are cleared away the staff takes every dish off the table instead of leaving the unused plates where they are set. Anna understands that it is all for aesthetics but it bothers her nonetheless. It's extra work for them but mostly she is curious how much dust would build up between each time someone fails to join her for a meal. When Anna takes her seat for the first time since returning from Corona, she imagines nearly three years of dust on her plate.

Anna doesn't linger around wondering if either of her parents will join her. She pinches up each napkin and starts fiddling with them as she waits for her meal to be served. She eats alone. Once her hands are busy with her fork and knife and she is no longer trying to recall how to fold a rabbit and a rose, her mind is free to wander. All she does is look forward to the chair that was never filled and chews.

Arendelle is full of rumours. Everyone lives cooped up, waiting for a clear day just to be able to withstand the outdoors. People can go days without getting a breath of fresh air. The gossip is as thick as the uncirculated air in the sealed up palace. The slander Anna is thinking of now is how the King is seemingly trying to replace the Princess. Anna's mother is unwell and as people put it, her days are numbered. As the stories go, the King is eager to fill the Queen's spot in his bed, since that is where heirs are made.

Anna does not believe that her mother is on the brink of death. Even bedridden Anna believes that it is only the cold that is keeping the Queen heavy. If her skin can feel warmth she will once again rise to her feet, join her family at the breakfast table, and keep running her school. Anna is suddenly frustrated in knowing that her reunion with the voice did not go well. She hates that she used to sit in this very spot and let her imagination fill the empty seat with a personified version of the voice. Anna would annoy her father when she insisted on putting some of her fruit and porridge on the plate opposite her. For a long time, she romanticized the idea that the voice could be part of her family.

The voice however is a foe to her family. It has the power to redeem the once great land of Arendelle but refuses Anna. Anna had let herself believe that her reunion with the voice would be like all the others. The Princess has reviewed the history of every storm and knows that the biggest thaws happened when Anna went back into the attics. Anna had actually imagined it would be that easy. Just as Anna has grown the voice has changed. It is no longer sincere or candid. Its tone is no longer light, and oblivious. It is still feminine but it is also raspy. It lashed out at Anna not only with its power but with its tone.

Anna looks at the empty seat to her right. If her mother's days are truly nearing their end, Anna does not have time to get into screaming matches with the voice. Anna leaves her barely touched meal on a table with the mostly clean plates and takes the short walk to the Queen's chambers. When she enters her mother looks as she did when Anna visited her last. Almost as if not a second had passed since Anna left the room.

There's a tray of different foods next to the Queen's king-sized bed. It is full of bowls all with different coloured contents but all with the same soft and mushy consistency. There's a spoon poking out of the one coloured beige as if someone has already attempted to give the Queen her morning meal. They seemingly gave up and left the food to form a crust on top, apparently thinking that the food may still be edible when they attempt it again.

Anna takes a seat at the edge of the bed and stirs a bowl, mixing in the dry bits with the wet, trying her best to rehydrate the meal. Her mother's eyes are fixed on her child. Anna smiles sweetly all the while her heart is cracking.

"What are the things you used to say to me to convince me to eat?" Anna cannot remember. Her mother was only concerned with her daughter's nutrition before she fell into her first bout of depression. After the age of five, the Queen was a silent figure during the morning meals the family shared. But Anna still tries it. She pinches her lips together and blows out air, the noise she makes is closer to a trumpet than an elephant as she swirls the spoon in the motion of an ocean wave. Her mother turns her head, rejecting what Anna assumes is ground carrots.

"How about potatoes?" She tries. The Queen says nothing. Anna can tell why the person before her gave up. Her mother is looking out at the window. The pained glass is mostly frozen but the storm raging is still visible. Anna heard chatter that this is the worst storm to blow into Arendelle in the last while. Anna knows it is because she upset the voice.

"Would you like me to read to you? Or I could brush your hair? Would you like to know about some of the field training I did in Corona?" Every time Anna finishes a question the Queen uses whatever strength she has to shake her no.

"I can just lay with you." Anna attempts one more time. Her mother doesn't answer. She only takes in the storm. Anna sighs. Since her mother is only a shell, Anna convinces herself to ask a question. She has nothing to lose if her mother is unresponsive and nothing to lose if her mother becomes indignant.

"What is locked up in the attic?" She tries.

"The change of seasons lurks there. If you've come across it consider yourself lucky to be alive." The only thing that moves is her mother's lips. She doesn't blink as she issues what feels like a sort of warning.

"It's never hurt me." Anna defends, although she is unaware of why. The voice is her enemy after all. It is the enemy of all of Arendelle.

"Are you sure about that?" The Queen lifts her hand. Her thin fingers curl into her palm leaving the index to point out at the window.

"How do I reach it?" No answer. Anna's mother closes her eyes. There is no movement in the room. The Queen's chest does not even rise or fall. Anna thinks she might have died.

"Say goodbye for me." The Queen is finite. Anna leaves.

Anna learns nothing of immediate use from her interaction with the Queen. Her mother only confirmed that she knew of the voice, and as Queen of a suffering land, is powerless to stop it. It is clear to Anna now that the voice is what has been draining her mother of joy for the entirety of a decade. It is a clue. If Anna is correct in thinking so, she has an established timeline. The guess is her best option. That investigation will require some time. Which makes her discovery of little use being as she has confirmed something more pressing. What Arendelle's subjects are saying about their King and Queen is true. Her mother's life is very much on the line. Time is limited.

Anna feels herself spiral as she often did as a child. She feels the weight of all her carelessness. The one thing that she should have known to be true, the one thing that even sort of made sense to Anna was that the voice might love her. It was the one thing she did not take into account when she made her way up into the attic. The Princess should have felt the love in the cold that enshrouded Anna as she used her body to pin down a stranger. The temperature had dropped, the Princess had picked up on that. What she did not foresee was that the voice was announcing itself, it was wagging its tail, and Anna focused on the hot touch instead of the chilling one. The voice had moved its call to meet the Princess at the bay. Anna had heard it. The voice had a way of knowing she was home.

Anna spends the day looking out of a window at the raging wind of a lover scorned. Anna knows what unrequited love feels like but she has only scratched the surface of heartbreak. The blowing snow is teardrops. Anna has spent many hours just staring at snowstorms. These powerful drifts are something to be analyzed. The voice has changed, it's evolved and become stronger. Just as its tone has matured its manipulation of the winter season is vastly more controlled. Even seeing Anna in the room below the attic seems like a new skill. Anna has to assume that it has eyes and a voice in every single fractal of ice and snow.

Anna presses herself against the cold glass. The longer she lays against the window the more hits of snow that particular pane takes. Anna wonders if, as a twelve-year-old, she could have put an end to the voice, if she had just let herself examine it. As it sits, Anna is starting to understand the voice in an emotional capacity and in a physical one too.

The Princess knows what she has to do to get back into the only space where she can talk back to the voice. She is listening to it now. Anna hears what the voice is raging about. The Princess is confident that the voice wants Anna to come back into the attic and finish the fight Anna ran away from. That's why hail is impossibly mixed with this storm. The voice is talking to Anna.

The Princess pays three men to find another room to accommodate them that isn't the space below the hatch of the attic. They eagerly accept the meagre amount, even though the currency is Coronan. Anna has offered much more to come. They trust her because she is Royalty. Anna hopes they never come to collect. She has nothing else to her name. When Anna knocks on the door, she knows that her stranger will be alone. He seems to have been expecting her because he does not smell so strongly anymore.

He says "Hi," and that's all he manages. The small room looks so much bigger now that it only holds his stuff. Anna is very aware of the cold watching her. She looks at the ice built up around the hatch to the attic. The voice has eyes on her. Anna doesn't know how far she can go before it angers and engulfs the entire palace. It is capable of taking all that is left of Arendelle if Anna pushes too far.

"I was wondering if I can stay the night."

"Of course. I don't have roommates anymore."

"I know," Anna says it because she wants the stranger to know she has pull, she has power. Truthfully she spent the only coin she had left and she has not a single ally in her fight to bring back the sun. But the Princess does not want to look weak in front of this man. She wants his nerves to stay tense. The Princess fears losing the upper hand over him and becoming the doll she used to be.

Anna lets herself in further into the space, and she drops herself to seated on the edge of the only bunk bed left in the space. "I'm actually the top. We did it on my friends-"

"Does it matter? They are both yours now."

"Right, yes. What am I saying? I'm just really nervous."

"Are you going to lay with me or not?" Anna hates the way her voice sounds when she talks to this person. She wonders what the voice thinks of it, of her. It hurts to imagine the sound of the voice calling her _whore_ like so many others have done. Her own voice is brasher this time around. She already has the boy's attention, she does not need to be honey anymore. Anna is sure that the fact that she sweetened herself for him, is what caused the voice to become so impossible when Anna finally addressed it.

Soon Anna is in the hold of strong arms. She's undressed while his eyes are locked to the ground. He lies fully clothed. He seems to be holding on tight as if her body is the tangible proof that says his life has been significantly altered. Anna forces his back against the wall, his front is wrapped around her. His breath is in her hair. The Princess is staring at the ice as if her eyes were locked with whatever part of the voice that can see. She feels the stranger's erection spike gradually. It pushes into the last rung of her spine. He tries to move away but he's trapped between the wall and the Princess. The only comfortable place for him to go would be inside her.

Anna takes a deep breath. She feels less willing to play this way when she knows it hurts the voice. It feels less righteous and more filthy. She has stared at the ice long enough to notice it is growing by the millimetre. She does not lose sight of it as she begins to rock her body against the stranger's excitement. This is an old trick that Anna wished she had known before exchanging stories with girls in her bunk at her reform school. It is said to mostly work for younger boys but Anna takes her bet that the stranger's inexperience will translate to success.

Just the grind makes him try to pull himself inward but a moan from the Princess gives him permission to rub himself on her. He takes it with less reluctance than their previous engagement. Anna watches the ice retreat. She immediately misses the cold as the mannish boy breathes heat into her neck. He dares put his lips down on her skin and is proud of the shudder he elicits. Just like the lewd stories of Anna's classmates, it does not take long for the stranger's ribs to start to pull his stomach inward. He makes a strange grouse. The hand he had rested over Anna rushes down to his crotch and he buries his head into her shoulders.

"I'm so sorry," He says with a ragged breath. Anna can feel him try to make himself smaller. She feels both pity and guilt when she turns her neck to look back at him. His face is red and his teeth are gritted, and he is at a loss as to what to do about the wetness between his legs. The guilt overcomes Anna, as she pulls herself away. He's a better man than anyone that's ever touched her. Those boys let themselves get all over Anna, purposefully spread themselves on her. She has almost blocked this whole part out of these types of experiences from the trauma of it alone.

The boy behind her has no idea what to do with himself even though it is his seed. He has to have ways to rid himself of it when he's alone. Alone. Anna gives him space. She tries to say something to ease his shame but she's at a loss. She just turns her back as he did for her as she removed her dress. Anna hears him rummage through his drawer. He drops every piece of clothing he tries to put on. The Princess doesn't need to look at him to know he is shaking. She feels herself want to cry for being so cruel.

The movement stops and the stranger takes this opportunity to address Anna without looking her in the eye. "What was it about me, that made you come find me?"

"I don't know if I can put it into words." Anna does not want to lie to him. But she is kidding herself to think that her half-truth does him any good.

"Oh." He mutters and begins to pace the room. "People talk a lot around here. They say a lot of not so nice things about you." Anna knows what he is trying to say. Anna adjusts her position to a more regal one, even though she is staring at the walls it causes the stranger to stammer. "Just this morning some of the guys were saying you like girls. So I guess you can't believe everything you hear."

"I do like girls. Best you know that now." Anna takes ownership of her inclinations, not for the sake of the stranger but for whatever part of the voice that has a sense of hearing. The frost has crept back now that the hard part to watch is over. "You are looking for me to confirm what I said about you the other day. But all I can say is I'm damaged. The reason I'm here is that I am trying to do something right."

"You think I'm right for you?" There's a hint of hope in his voice. He sits back on the bed. He keeps his distance but reaches out to put his hand on the Princess's shoulder. It's a pleasant enough touch. Anna lets her face take whatever distorted shape it pleases as she searches for some sort of response.

"Being in this room is part of my destiny. You wouldn't imagine the things that have brought me here. You've heard what they say about me. It fuels this idea I have of myself where I believe I am the end of Arendelle. So I do not promise you a happy ending. There's also a chance I might save summer but either way, I make no vows."

"You aren't what they say." The stranger pulls Anna back into his arms. He's so big that Anna even thinks she hears a clicking sound as she finds herself fitting into his embrace. Anna sobs. She cannot see how the ice reacts to her misery through her tears. The only certainty Anna has now is that a good man holds her until she weakens herself to sleep.

It is impossible to tell what time it is when Anna wakes. The windowless room gives no indication. The hold Anna's stranger has on her is limp now. She slips away with ease. Her heart is racing as she watches the boy sleep. He is the most comfortable Anna has ever seen him. She knows nothing about him and a single creak could be enough to make him stir. Anna doesn't bother to get dressed. She stays in her underclothes but reaches out for her axe.

She climbs the ladder of the bunk bed like a sloth. The hatch is quite a way to reach. The Princess rocks the bed a bit as she displaces her weight to one side. The head of the axe gives her the length she needs to prop open the entrance to the attic. Anna wedges it between the opening and pulls herself forwards and up. The ice that meets her there makes it harder to squeeze through as her fingers lose grip. The cold isn't trying to deter her. It skitters over her knuckles, almost as if it is apologetic.

"Catch the door," Anna tells the ice and it listens. It makes sure to absorb the sound. Anna is a bit out of breath as she curls her body on the floor. It isn't out of exertion but due to the fret she feels of being caught. The stranger seems so invested in her already. She fears his reaction to find out he's being used. She fears that she has not an explanation as to why she needs access to the attic.

"You need to calm the storm," Anna calls out as she brings herself to her feet. "The men need to get back to work. The castle cannot hold the livestock in the courtyard for long. Calm the storm in an act of good faith and I will continue to come here to negotiate the change in season." There is a pause. The ice on the ground retreats, Anna watches it move away, curious to see where it is going. She soon notices that it is simply shrinking from all sides and quickly becomes a small pool that disappears into nothingness.

_No._

"Why?" Anna tries to keep her voice even this time around. She cannot afford to yell with the sleeping stranger below them.

 _I can't_.

"Or won't." Easy, Anna tells herself.

_Can't!_

"Alright, I understand. You can't. You did make the cold worse after we spoke. So tell me how the storms stopped before. They do not always rage along with the winter."

 _I don't know_.

"I don't want to fight with you." Anna takes a deep breath.

 _Then why bare arms?_ Anna is surprised that the axe in her hand may have been part of what set the voice off the last time around. The voice is just a voice after all. There is nothing to it to slice open.

"Just a tool to leverage myself," Anna tries to reason. She lowers her weapon on the floor. Anna wants to be present but her mind wanders as she continues her examination of the voice's capabilities. If the ice was to return to the attic, would it feel Anna's bare feet under it? If it crawled to touch her upon arrival did it do so for Anna's sake or its own? Is the voice weary of the pain it would feel under a strike of Anna's axe? Has Anna really mistaken its fear for affection?

 _Right_. The skepticism is also new. Anna is overwhelmed with everything she's overlooked. In her memory, the voice is only sweetness with hints of sadness. Anna cannot decipher if she was that blind or even that arrogant as a child, that she missed the different parts of the voice. Or perhaps she is dealing with a new beast entirely.

"Please, this can't be what you want."

 _I want for nothing_. It can tell lies. Anna knows of one thing it has always wanted.

"Don't you want me to come back?"

 _Yes._ It answers without hesitation.

"Then I will." A pause.

_And him?_

"If it bothers you so much then show me where else I can reach you? Tell me where you are." The retort causes a rise in temperature but no response.

"No? Nothing? Fine, enjoy the show tomorrow." Anna has so much more to say and to ask but the cold is dimming. The voice can retreat.

"Figure out how to calm the storm," Anna demands as she picks up her blades. The ice aids with the hatch, Anna moves slowly so she can observe the beauty in it. It builds up like brilliant diamonds, each rich blues and royal purples. The edges are jagged. Anna is half in the attic, half in the room, when she lowers the tip of her thumb down on a barbed edge. It doesn't hurt until the cold air hits the small bead of blood.

The ice reacts. It vanishes upwards, taking with it the support of the large wooden hatch that comes crashing onto Anna's head. The thud ignites Anna's racing heart and she drops herself down into the room without grace. She is able to reach the top bunk but she rattles the entire structure.

There's a sigh released below her. "Princess," the male voice says. "Are you still here?"

The stranger is an Ice Harvester. He has all the physical traits needed to brave the perils of the cold. His thick skin is heavy on Anna's muscles. Every second finger or so is burnt black. Anna grows a preference for the digits with a dead to touch them. His hands are far too rough but when he lightly feathers her with smooth pads of his frostbite, the lack of friction allays her. His heft is cumbersome as he builds his own preference for bearing down on the Princess. Anna does her best to exhaust him but that means she too falls into lethargy after sex. The storm has the Ice Harvester out of work, rations are low. There's nothing for them to do but fuck.

Neither lover talks much. He's the only one that asks her questions. Somehow he knows not to ask anything too personal. The closest he gets to touching anything intimate is when he takes a clump of white hair stark against all the red locks and asks her about its origin. She gives him her rehearsed response, and minutes after answering they both drift off to sleep.

"I dreamt I was kissed by a troll."

Anna has a reoccurring dream. It started in Corona when people first started taking interest in her and is a result of the constant questioning regarding the origin of a sizable chunk of her hair being blanched white. It starts with cold in her head like if she just ate too much ice cream too quickly. The rush of cold is just as exhilarating as a mouth full of a sweet treat. There is no pain.

Then there is a call for help. A voice Anna knows well. It belongs to the cold. There is a rumble, at first it sounds like the pounding feet of war horses but then it distorts to become the thunder of a landslide. A mystical being takes something away from Anna. She goes from a restful state to one thrashing in terror. Anna does not want to give up what she feels she is losing. Only a kiss calms her. Anna knows the lips are soft but the only being she sees in her sleep is what she believes to be a rock troll.

Anna wakes from that reverie covered in ice. It's a thin layer that is crawling up her jaw making its way to her lips. She's being held down, but when she tests the use of her limbs the sheet of cold cracks and crumbles as she bends, effectively turning the ice into dull shards of glass. The ice continues, undisturbed and undeterred. It reaches her lips and dives down her throat. It's not a kiss but it feels like she is still in her dream state. The Princess feels the cold reach down her throat and into her stomach.

"Good morning," Anna capably says. Her words vibrate the cold embedded in her vocal cords. It's her fifth visit to the voice since her return from Corona. Her third visit was much like the first, the difference was that the screams were exchanged by whispering voices. Anna begged for a reprieve from the cold, but the voice could not forgive the acts it had watched.

"I'm not yours." Anna had rebutted the voice's jealousy.

 _You are all I have._ It had answered.

Anna returned the next day with the sweat of the stranger covering her skin and a book in her hand. She said nothing to the voice other than some other person's narrative. The voice was there, it listened, and halfway through the short story, the ice came to the Princess and curled up in her lap. Anna ran her hands over the slick surface, and sat with it through the burning pain on her skin.

_Hello._

Anna is cold, but her body does not shake as if it would never dare try to get rid of this phantasm touch. The more the cold settles into her the less harsh the cool of the attic feels.

"My mother asked me to bid you farewell in her name." Anna braced herself for a shift in the room but she remains acclimated.

 _Does she look like you?_ Anna takes a moment to contemplate.

"When I am sad I look at her."

_Then I must know her face well._

"It's the only one she has," Anna says as she realizes she's forgotten her mother's smile.

_Will she die?_

"I've lived in a land where the sun is always at your disposal. The people there were happier and healthier. People strive in the warmth. Have you ever felt the sun?"

 _Is that not you?_ A puff of air huffs out of Anna's nose. She knows the voice does not seek to flatter her, if it asked it's because that is how it feels. The question is both bolstering and equally defeating. The Princess is not what her mother needs to survive.

The room is empty when Anna returns to it. She takes all her things up to the attic with her now, so that the stranger may assume she's abandoned him in the middle of the night. Anna blames the cold draft and the small bed

when he questions her absences.

The Princess drops herself on his bed. It smells of them. She hates it, but it's the only space she has to herself. The voice keeps its ice at the rim of the hatch, she's okay with it watching her as long as she gets a real rest. Her mind is too clouded, it's telling her to rise to her feet, to keep trying. It's telling her to think harder, to climb the hatch, to tear the attic apart, to get to the libraries, to find the courage to speak to the man likely responsible, to win. But the cold in her belly feels better than anything she's felt in a long time. So she lies with it. She sleeps. Anna wastes time.

As Princess, Anna is meant to attend all Church services. It is of the few duties the Princess has left, she manages to get through the doors in time. The hymns that fill the chapel are the same ones exulted in Corona. As Anna's mother has always expected her child to do, Anna lets her voice sail upwards to the heavens. She overpowers the few Arendellian's that still attend the chapel on the day of worship. All the theological knowledge, the King paid for Anna to absorb at her reform school, serves little purpose amongst her people now. Most have lost faith in the Gods' interest in them. The cold has jaded Arendelle. Worship now is for the desperate. The desperate find little solace in Anna's voice. Her presence at the foot of the High Priest unnerves them as if she is part of the problem, not the solution.

The absence of her father is one to note. As Anna sings praise, there are undertoned mutterings as to why and slurs towards his lacking replacement. Since this is a place of prayer, Anna asks that her father live forever, so she may never have to take his place perpetually. It is a mispleaded invocation.

The King of Arendelle remains steadfastly pious. On this day he devotes his prayer, not at mass but at the foot of his wife's bed. He spends the day of worship trying to win the good graces of any God that will listen. Anna is drawn to his quick whispering voice as he pleads. Her presence in the Queen's chambers does not shift his trance, so she slips into the room and seats herself on a chair near the warmth of the hearth. She watches her parents. Her mother is pale, her eyes are shut. She looks more peaceful than she does sullen today. As if her husband's words are an opiate. Anna has rarely seen them in the same room during a storm.

Anna knows it's different now. Her mother is unwell in a new way. But maybe Anna was wrong as a child to think that the tension between her parents had to do with Arendelle. The voice is the root of it all. Even sick, there is no fight between the King and Queen. There is only love. Perchance there is no reason for them to at odds over the voice anymore. That being has so changed. Anna can list the ways. Its new control is coupled with a lack thereof. Do her parents know that the voice claims it cannot reverse the damage it's done? Is the King really part of the defeated?

The Princess looks for any sign of the sky, through the grand window, as a white-out storm races. She cannot make out the words to her father's prayer but they do slowly lose all fervour. His calls for salvation are replaced with a prayer for peace. There is nothing in the sky, no Gods, just the torment of the swirling wind. It has a complete lack of colour as it rages. Something slams into the window pane and cracks the glass right in between Anna's eyes. She flinches and turns to see if her father has been roused. His eyes are still downcast at this wife.

When Anna turns back, she runs her fingers over the damage, the thin breach starts sucking the heat out of the room. Anna feels the cold. The heat from the fire is suddenly overbearing to Anna as she watches the storm shift. Anna feels that there is a war being fought out in her land. It's colourless still, Anna feels like she might be hallucinating to be able to tell the difference between gusts of wind and individual snowflakes.

The longer she stares, the more she sees it. She is witnessing a battle between the cold and the voice. As if they are two different parts of the entity. One is trying to force the cold away while the other is forcing it towards the window sill where Anna sits. For an instant, the Princess sees her, right in the middle where two forceful winds collide, a woman. She stands one hundred feet tall. Her bare body is facing the castle. She's made completely out of snow. Anna watches Her ribs expand as She takes a deep breath of icy air and blows the gale out into the storm. She puts Her hands up and crosses them over Her face to block the returning force. When She tries again, Anna gets a glimpse of blue in the sky.

Anna wants to call out Her name but she doesn't know it. Her failure to do so causes a blast of snow to engulf the figure. The white powder overwhelms and consumes. It takes over the entire sky. All is white again. There are no details to be seen in the outside world. Just the raging whip of the wind berating the castle. Anna hears the voice call out for her in the same calm and matching inflection as her father does.

"Anna, it's done. She's gone."

There are too many empty chairs at the breakfast table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for everyone for the warm reception. Such sweethearts here at AO3. ^^ I hope you enjoy this chapter. I love connecting with people, so feel free to PM or review. Your opinions are important to me, and I like to take what I hear into account when writing stories for you.


	4. Relief

Apparently they burn the dead now. Those who have passed on, essentially, help fight the cold by heating the castle with the disposal of their flesh. That's what the Ice Harvester tells Anna as they share their longest ever conversation. It also happens to be the first between the two outside of the bedroom. As the stranger explains that the kilns were re-adapted to hold bodies, Anna can feel her father's steady gaze on her.

"It doesn't smell though," the Ice Harvester stammers. "Unless you are in the basements." Anna feels her eyelids blink slowly. The conversation feels so surreal. Her mother is to be burned. It's not the heat Anna wanted to gift her. She feels the need to laugh, but ends up just choking. The stranger puts his arm protectively on Anna's capped shoulders. The Princess wonders if her father's depression can be broken by his disgust in her. But when she gathers a bit of courage to look towards the King, she realizes he isn't thinking of her. He isn't looking at the Princess although his eyes are on her. He sees something else in her place. It's a look she recognizes, the girl has seen it quite a lot in her days. Her parents always seemed to be looking for more from her than what she is.

Anna hears the most kind words she's ever garnered as her subjects grieve for her Queen. She has no words to return to them. The Princess is not as regal and sophisticated as her mother was. Her only finesse is that she doesn't even try to say anything in response. Anna just nods and moves on to the next Arendellian. The second topic of conversation flowing between the prisoners of cold is that the temperature is slowly rising. A half a degree or so by the hour. It isn't much but it is the first time since Anna's return that people talk about the possibility of being able to take back the little space they have outside that is habitable.

Ice Harvesters are to return to work at negative thirty degrees Celsius, unless coupled with heavy winds. Yet the Stranger says ice supplies are low. The most important thing is that the storm be gone in three weeks' time when the next resupply is slated to arrive. The Throne still needs to pay for what it receives. Arendelle's currency is currently ice. The Ice Harvesters are considering braving the storm. The death of the Queen is a lucky event for the Stranger. There is a stop work order while everyone is in mourning. Rations are doubled for the day. Once the initial shock of the Queen's passing, the Ice Harvester will likely be called back to work under the deadly conditions.

Anna is stuck wanting the temperature to warm her land and wanting the stranger to be spared from going out in the cold. She hates herself for never having a true allegiance and for never ever having a constant feeling other than shame. She feels very shameful as the people gather to pay their respects because the moment Anna's mother died she felt nothing but relief.

The image of the shape of a woman is the only thing the Princess can picture whenever she sees white. It's fortunate for her that the chorus is singing the funeral song and that Arendelle, known for the snow, is currently a sea of black. Still the Princess cannot shake it. She cannot let go of the fact that she saw the sky as if the voice opened it up just enough to let her mother squeeze past the cold and find her place amongst her Gods.

Out of all the things in her mind, the most moving of them is her need to be in the strongest presence of the voice. She knows it is with her now, as the castle's inhabitants all seem to need to cover the length of their arms by running their hands over themselves. The voice is trying. Anna can sense it, it is trying to be the support Anna needs. She is sure of it as the stranger's teeth start to rattle. The voice is sucking the cold out from outside and forcing it in just for Anna. The Princess wants to meet it in the only place she can talk back.

The Princess refuses any shawl offered to her, she refuses the stranger's arms trying to encircle her, she wants only the cold. The vigil starts to thin out as people lose their tolerance for it. They run off to smaller spaces where they can share the warmth crying bodies so easily make. There soon aren't enough people between the Princess and the King, their shoulders eventually meet.

"The winter now will be the death of the rest of us." The King says to his only child. He is the image of his portraits, straight faced, caring, and strong. His expression looks painted on. Anna knows this one thing about him more than she knows him as father. The cold is his worst enemy.

"The temperature is dropping." Anna reassures in defense of the voice.

"Outside. But it seems to hell bent on coming in here."

"The change of seasons you mean?" The King flinches as the only cognomen for the voice Anna has leaves her lips.

"The death of me," he answers. Anna wants to press more but they both are forced to summon an identical smile as some dignitary approaches them with sympathies.

"Will you join me for a meal come morning?" Anna cuts through the line up of bereavement to ask. "Please father?" The Princess knows that the last thing she ever asked her father for was a gramophone. Still he denies her even this.

Even though the King is trained to hold back his shivers, Anna sees him struggle to keep his composer in the chill. She dismisses herself so that she can take the cold away with her. It feels like it is following her on leash as she travels down the hallway. She has no goal to where her feet are leading her, there is no safe space in this castle for her to crumble and allow the cold inside her. It keeps knocking at her skin as if she was door, she wants for nothing except to open up. Still the Princess has to wait for nightfall to make it to the attic.

"My condolences baby doll," a slick voice calls from the end of a hallway. It speaks to her back as if it was following her aimless paces. She doesn't need to turn around to know who is there. This is the boy that likes pink. She trains her ears on the ruffling around him, he isn't alone. She counts them to four. Four men at her back. Anna realizes then that there is something gone inside her, extinguished between the first day she came home and now, as she stands motherless. Today she doesn't have a Queen to run to when she hears a voice that has tormented her, and therefore, with no salvation, has no reason to be scared.

She turns. Anna meets this grown man's eyes. His slurs are the ones that broke what her mother saw in her child, that made her unfit to be Queen, his touch sent her to Corona where she felt sweeter ones than his heat. She would say thank you to him if he hadn't also separated her from the voice and had taken an unknowing role of pawn in favour of the winter.

"Thank you," she answers and the sweeping nod of her head addresses all four men. Anna knows their faces, they will solicit the money she has promised. They are the stranger's old roommates, and the boy of Anna's past seems to have emboldened them to come and collect.

"My friends have informed me you are indebted to them. As an old friends of yours I would like to offer my services to facilitate that exchange." He looks so much older than he used to be but his wicked little smile is the same one he flashed when pulling at her clothes. He likely doesn't live in the barracks, his mournful blacks are freshly pressed and accented with gold coloured embroidery, matching hers as if they were part of a set. He has clawed his way up to status. The men, he is at the helm of, are not as fortunate or maybe not as conniving.

There is no ice in the halls, just a cold breeze as if someone left open a window. The voice is pacing like a caged cat. Anna is surprised to feel its power blow through the hair of the men she faces. She wants to focus on the control she sees before her but the threat of the men demands her attention.

"I cancel my debts," she says casually and shrugs. The cold likes the stance Anna takes, it swirls around her and settles at her feet.

"Ha," a head is thrown back in laughter and cues the others to do the same. "I don't know how it works in the turrets of the castle, but down here debts are paid with interests."

"What do I owe?" It's Anna's turn to laugh as the amount spat at her deserves ridicule. "That's about the value of all your lives."

The men take a few aggressive steps forward, Anna puts out a palm. They stop because she is of course a Princess. She has some sort of command still. She bends at the knees and lowers herself down, it almost looks like she is asking for mercy. It's an action this man has forced Anna to make more times then she cares to recount. That smile, the one that he shows to the men he's lured here, disgusts her. It used to make her feel so meek, so afraid. He has no care of her status, he has ripped it from her hands before. He advances with that smile on his face, with no regard to her halting hand. Lower to the ground, the cold strokes her fingers as she reaches for the peasant axe she stows away in her dress. The smile falters as she storms forward.

"I cancel my debts," she repeats with her weapon pointed at his direction. He blinks once, and another bout of laughter fills the halls.

"Settle her," the command is issued and the three men push forward. Anna's muscles are glad to start working from memory. The stance of the warrior, which she's never been given the chance to be, feels good even in her most royal heeled boots. She does not need to command her body, it plays the movements she used to do just to wake herself up in the morning. Three or so combinations are all she needs to take her assailants down to the ground. She flips her weapon to strike with the swell knob. Anna allows herself the full force she never tapped into when sparring. The heavy swift action fills her ears with pained and disgruntled cries.

The final move she does with a flourish, she enjoys the way cape swirls in conjunction to her funeral dress as she jolts forward and lands a blade just a space away from her cocky ex's throat. He swallows and his Adam's apple comes in contact with the steel.

"Your lives are spared. Tomorrow when you wake you to see a new day _you_ will be indebted to _me._ Would you rather make that payment or serve your Princess?" The men do not rise to their feet, from the ground they listen. "You are four men now, tomorrow being another, bring ten and your debts will only continue to rise. If you think your weak hands can defeat me, then it's time to start seeing me as your would-be Queen."

The only applause is the beating of Anna's heart as she continues down her path. This time she knows where she is going. The Princess doesn't want to wait any longer to let the cold in. When she reaches the gates her tone takes her father's edge as she commands them open. Having not bothered to tuck her axe back against her thigh, the guards do not flinch. When the large wooden gates are pulled back a wall of snow twice the height of the princess is packed like it is it's own barrier. Anna digs the axeblade deep in and high overhead. With her hands wrapped firmly around the belly of the handle, she kicks her toes into the dense powder and heaves her weight up.

The Princess does not fully feel the cold until she is at the top of the embankment. The guards crane their necks to watch her take a stand on the may have called out to her, but the wind takes away their words. The air here hurts more than any ache she's felt, dull or sharp, hot or freezing, physical or even the deep torment of loss. This is the cold the voice is truly capable of. It is nothing like the refreshing sensation it brings with it to stroke Anna, or just to simply watch her. This pain cancels out any other the Princess of Arendelle has ever felt. It is powerful enough to remove every thought she has ever had. It is a cold that can kill but leave it's victim in true peace. Bathed in that magic, Anna did not feel her shame anymore, for the first time since the sun burnt her skin she felt nothing, but pure cold.

The first feeling Anna regains, when the frost over her eyes finally thaws, is that of regret. She regrets not having sliced open the throat of the boy who likes pink and made a lesson of him. She wishes she could have felt the sensation of her blade making a clean but deep opening, that it be swift enough that his vocal chords not have had a chance to scream. Surrounded by his peers, he would have been labeled a fool ,in death, to have touched the Princess once. It would have been so sweet to make a spectacle of him, as he had done with her when she was just a child.

Anna is flat on her back. Her blinking eyes recognize the thin wooden slats above her. She is in the strangers bed. Her joints are stiff, she is sure there are ice shards in her muscles as she feels around the mattress for her axe. It isn't anywhere she can reach. Her eardrums are thawed, she can hear heavy footsteps pacing the small length of the room. The Ice Harvester is here. Just when Anna recognizes this he takes note of her languish stirring.

"Gods, Anna. You're awake," He dives onto his knees, the fabric of his pants helping slide to her bedside. "I've been so worried for you."

"Where's my axe?" The Stranger is running his frostbitten fingers along her forehead, but her question causes him to suck in a breath. The caress halts. His finger leaves her face to grasp at each side of her.

"I have your things, but Anna. What were you thinking?" He shakes her at the shoulders. "I managed to keep word of this away from the King. But when my old roomie found me, he thought you were dead."

"Who carried me here?"

"Men of the guard, and me."

"Don't let anyone else touch me ever again." Anna demands. Her skin chooses to wake. Knowledge that one of the men in the hallway could have come in contact with her causes her flesh to pimple at the pores.

"Anna, are you alright?" The ice harvester takes his own hands back, suddenly aware that he might not have the best effect on the Princess of Arendelle. It is a thought that likely strikes him deeply as his bottom lip trembles.

"What were you doing Anna?" His voice cracks, his own fears make him sound pubescent. His sad eyes make him look like a just a child "You can't leave Anna. Please don't try to leave again."

"Can you leave? I just need to be alone."

"Alright. But I'm taking your weapon." The stranger pushes his lips together. It's the first crack over anger Anna's seen in him. The Princess is cold to him, she knows this, but she repays him with more than enough heat. His concern is apparent in his eyes. He, by proxy, feels some of the anguish that haunts her.

"So be it." Anna feels fully awake even lying on her back. She has regained her pains. They feel so much more acute after falling into a bliss of true cold. She has this ail which she needs to have taken away. The soft eyes of the stranger shake at the weakened sight of his Princess and all Anna can do is look past him, at the hatch in the ceiling. She returns none of the care he tries to gift her with, still the stranger protects her by locking the door when he goes.

_Anna!_ The voice has only once before broken the quiet of the attic prior to Anna, and that was the first time it ever called her name. The Princess has barely had a chance to straighten her back when it speaks.

_What were you doing out there?_

"I wanted to hurt on the outside as much as it hurts in here." Anna admits as she brings a closed fist to her chest.

_Idiot!_ A lash of cold hits Anna. She cracks a smile. The voice is new to name calling, in their last few arguments it has failed to cast slurs, always stumbling before it crossed some sort of line. Anna agrees with the voice, she is a fool but she also felt exactly what she was seeking out by leaving the Castle. For the Princess, it's a first.

"I don't know if it was me that was meant to solve this," Anna says as she concedes to being called an idiot. "I need you."

_You aren't angry at me?_ There is so much relief behind the words that flow freely in the attic air.

"Of course I am! But you're it. It's my turn to say you are all I have." The declaration is truer now that Anna's mother is gone. The Princess is forgetting all of her motives. Corona feels like such a distant thought now that she's been in the winter.

_But I'm not anything._

"You're something. I saw you fighting for the sun. How can you be nothing if my mother is dead because of you?" The sensation Anna woke with, the one idling to kill is still so present. Anna wonders if the voice can bleed. Instead of the boy that humiliated her, she starts to picture the woman made of snow. Anna only saw Her from behind, but it is from behind she would need to strike a blow. From behind is how one kills a being as powerful as the change in seasons. Instead of wanting to relish in this feeling Anna jostles her entire body to try to shake it off.

"I don't know whether to hate you or to love you. I'm scared of finding you because I don't want to have to kill you for this." Anna's hands feel empty without her axe in her hands. She's never had a real use for it, still she cannot make the decision, between her feelings for the voice and her obligations to her Kingdom, without it firmly placed in her hands.

_Don't come for me, Anna. It's not my life you should be worried about but yours. I've always been more a danger to you than anyone._

"I'm not afraid of death. I don't have a life to be scared of losing. I'm as helpless as Arendelle. But I saw you fight. You wanted me to see you fight."

_Yes, but I was correct about my limitations._

"No. That's not good enough. If you can fight, then fight. Change the season!" Anna's voice echoes in the confines. The voice inhales. Anna muses that it is taking in a breath of itself.

_Tell me of a battle you've won against your own self._ Anna is silenced. She sighs, she's tired. The Princess considers leaving, she stares at the hatch. She could go, but it was so nice to come up here without having to pay the toll. She doesn't know when the stranger will be back. There is still so much more to be said.

_You aren't asking me what you really want to. Your movements are a language I speak. What aren't you saying?_

"Can you show yourself to me?" The Princess says without hesitancy. She herself did not expect those words to hit the cold air. As soon as they leave her mouth, Anna feels her shame again. Her mother is gone but that does not mean that solving the winter is still not of the utmost priority. After all, her stranger is slated to brave a cold Anna only lasted the better part of a minute in before collapsing. Lives are always on the line in Arendelle.

It doesn't matter if she wants to take her request back or not. The temperature of the room changes. A howling wind kicks up. Anna feels a power at her feet, the cold is sucking itself out of the corners in which it lingers within the castle and forcing itself up between the floorboards of the attic. It all collects before the Princess of Arendelle. The air moves with an inward force as it builds a cyclone carrying snow and ice. It's almost impossible for Anna to keep her eyes open, her forearm against her forehead doesn't aid her. Still she lunges her left leg forward, and braces with her knees as she lowers herself slightly closer to the ground below her.

The longer she can keep from blinking the better she can make up the shape in the snow storm. The curves, Hers, are the same ones that tried to fight the tempest overtaking Arendelle. The snow is circling, but every few seconds each flake finds perfect alignment, and a flash of Her strikes Anna's vision. The Princess doesn't know Her face, doesn't know Her body but still she recognizes Her. She stands naked, feet shoulder width apart, hands to her side, palms out, with platinum white snow strands sweeping in front of Her face. When Anna searches out Her eyes she meets solid blue ice. Anna smiles because her heart is skipping not out of torment but the way a child does. It is skipping. The voice blinks, _Anna,_ She says before disappearing with the simmering of the blowing snow.

The attic settles but only for a moment. Anna sees it now, from the furthest wall a rush of ice spreads. It races to come in contact with the Princess, it climbs up her heels and pushes past the layers of her gown, it moves desperately yet also very capably as it finds ways to get at her skin. Anna falls to her knees and it's like diving into the cold. The ice meets her, it coils itself around her in a thin sheet that has to reinforce itself whenever she moves.

The Princess is melting. She melts into the cold as it engulfs her. She tilts her head back and opens her mouth. The voice takes the permission to slide between Anna's teeth and dive into her throat. Anna lets her body drop backwards. The cold cushions her fall. Anna can hear the creaking sound of disturbed snow as her body bucks at the sensation of being overcome.

_Remember to breathe_ The voice addresses Anna from within her belly. The Princess releases the breath she was holding, it makes space for the cold to take hold on Anna even there inside her lungs. The hurried pace of the ice simmers and starts to move in a creep.

Outside of the castle fortress, the cold had forced away Anna's feelings, it skinned back everything that made up the Princess and it felt distinctly like death. Here, in the attic, it is a cleanse of the heartache. Good is being made within Anna. Her bones rattle into one another. As she shakes, tendons and joints matter little. Anna feels them be crushed by the intensity of the vibrations. The Princess's teeth chatter in rhythm and pleas. Anna's skin cries out as her growing goose bumps pull at her in every direction. The tender skin of her nipples is stretched to taut as they can't stand to harden more.

There's a burn in her stomach where the cold is most dense. The ice is weighted and it forces the heat down and in between her legs. And there, at her core, Anna feels like she had just come in from the cold. The warmth spreads what is a burn pushing the chill away to make room for pleasure. At the top of this mountain, the heightening of her sudden arousal causes her to scream. When the sound is gone, all that is left inside Anna is the air moving in and out of her alongside ragged breaths. The heat travels the length of her, it seeps out through any tip or end of her body. The ice skirts away.

The Princess lays still. The snow underneath her is gone. The attic is again just wooden boards and stone built together. Anna bits her lip to test that she isn't broken. It doesn't take much pressure to feel a tiny morsel of pain. She's still alive even though her mind is telling her that if she succumbs to the hazy sleep it's offering her, she might die happy. Anna wants to cry because she knows she did not deserve whatever it was the voice had just given her. But the cold doesn't let her. It freezes her tear ducts.

"I don't think you are a shadow." Anna says to it now. "You are real. You are the elephant. I know that now."

_Am I?_ The voice asks, it is right in Anna's ear, as if it was laying beside her. Anna turns to look at the empty space. She imagines the face, she took only a second to memorize, is there looking at her lovingly.

"Yes. I can see you." The snowy face flushes.

"I can feel you." It brings it's forehead down and rests it on Anna's.

"I can taste you." A thumb grazes her lips.

"I can smell you." Anna takes a deep breath, the old stuffy attic smells of winter. Anna knows the voice is smiling at her words. She pictures Her, and imagines the way She would smile.

_Mm._

"I hear you. That means I can find you."

_Is it hard to spot an elephant?_ There's a hint of a chuckle laced with the voice. Anna wants to continue to stroke the afterglow she feels in each inch of her that was just numbed by the cold. She feels as if she is smoldering. The Princess can let the content settle, and she will extinguish, or Anna can focus on the cold wind and once more build up the flames.

"There has to be people in this castle that know who you are, where you are and what you are capable of. They just refuse to talk about it." Anna says to the elephants as she catches fire again.

"I think I know who but I cannot go to them without being certain. Remember I've been sent away before. I am not a permanent fixture of this castle. The only power I will have against them is the answers you give me and what I can learn for myself."

_l'm in here. It's all I know. I used to know. I used to know a lot of things. I used to tell time. But now I only know you left me a long time because of the shape of your curves. Right now it feels like you were just here, little, singing to me. Sometimes it feels like you haven't returned and I've spent an eternity in the cold without you._

"I am here. The passing of time will not change that." Anna reassures. The chime in its voice is gone. Anna feels just like the voice says, like years haven't passed, and Anna is talking to the same voice that used to forget her name, that confused the little things.

"Try telling me about the cold." Anna wants to be simple. The voice does not usually talk for long stretches. It doesn't ever put together such big thoughts. The Princess waits eagerly for it to respond.

_It's always been a part of me._ It answers after giving the question some thought. _The only reason I know the sun is still rising is because with each day it takes hold of me more and more. Maybe there used to be more of me, but now I am just mostly cold. Yes, I used to have a name and I used to know it like I know yours. But it got erased, or maybe it faded away, like the rest of me. Maybe I was a girl with a name. But I think I remember being erased._ Anna reels in her temper. She wills herself to say lame on her back.

"Who took our name away?" It was easy for Anna to once think of the voice as an equal, it matured alongside the Princess. The way it is now, compared to back then, the voice holds more gravity in it. It has grown. If it was once a girl with a name, it meant she was a child when it was taken from her. Anna always thought herself bigger as a kid, stronger that she actually was. The voice she met then felt like a part of her, a comrade. Anna never heard a kid's voice responding to her. She, therefore, had overlooked that the voice used to be unfledged.

For a long time, the Princess of Arendelle has felt that she has shrunken more than she has grown. The moments and people that have taken vertebrates from her spine are burnt into her memory, they degrade her even when they are absent. Anna too, is guilty of making herself smaller. The voice has even tore her down. Aging, learning, growing, has not resolved that feeling of small the Princess has when roaming the castle halls. The voice, though belonging to a woman now, suffers that same belittlement. Anna knows the answer the voice will give her. To know someone has rendered the Change of Seasons vacuous just fuels the rancor brewing inside of her.

_I don't remember._

"I will kill them." Anna snaps. She brings herself to a stand and takes heavy purposeful steps towards the stone wall where the cold last seeped into. "If they took away your humanity, the cold is on their hands." The stone is cold as Anna pressed her temple against it. Her face twists as she readies her next question.

"Was it… was it the King?"

_A King? Like the kind in stories?_

"The King of Arendelle."

_Maybe._

"Then he's dead." Anna declares. She slams her fist against the wall.

_Anna. You can't._

"I will make him tell me where you are." The Princess says, knowing that addressing the wall is useless. There is no direction to be pointed to within the attic. Anna trusts that the voice only feds her truths. She turns her back against it and slides back down back to the ground. The cold is very still. The voice is at a loss.

"If he refuses me I will kill him." Anna says through her gritted teeth. She means each word as she sees herself claiming her Kingdom. This time when she sets herself capable of taking life, there are two pyres warming up her castle. "And as future Queen of Arendelle, I will command to know where you are!"

_I'm here._ To this day, Anna doesn't hate that answer. The voice is her constant. Its comforts, ones she needs to indulge in to get by and have hope for Arendelle. Here, Anna knows, means together.

"I know. So am I."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all, thanks for waiting for this update. This story is getting lots of my attention I promise. Just mostly in my head and less on the page. xD a guest was asking if it will be finished and the answer is, yes. I will see this one through, you may take my word on it. I enjoy writing quite a lot. My only hope is that if it’s confusing it’s in a good way. 
> 
> Please leave me a review to let me know what you think. Thank you all for following along and supporting me! 


	5. Reach

**Tiny Elephants**

**Chapter 5: Reach**

**By: SheAlwaysDies**

As far as Anna can tell, the voice has all its senses. They seem to be an advancement of its skill, maybe even its control. The voice’s speech is weak and basal when outside of the attic. It’s communication is only a call when Anna is not able to talk back. It has only ever said her name, a whisper in the wind. That projection is a trait Anna had first felt when she arrived from Corona. 

The voice can hear. Outside of the attic it has a rudimentary way of translating words with it’s cold air. Anna has tested it, telling the cold around her to react as if it is listening, it has shown some capabilities but not enough to establish any sort of language between one another. 

Anna knows that the voice can touch. Again, it cannot do so in a tangible sort when Anna is too far from their little sacred space. The Princess can feel the essence of a touch. The cold can move along her skin, it can make itself known but it is so lacking compared to the experience they shared when it was able to build ice all around and inside of Anna. The girl doesn’t know what to make of that touch. 

Anna is all too familiar with sex. She knows the way it works with a man and a woman, and she has many a time fantasized about the unique ways she could take on another female form. The Princess has complex relationship with sex. She has felt pleasure in many different casts, often feeling a betrayal when it tantalizes her. Anna still often thinks of the girl in Corona and the intensity that one almost complete sexual act had sparked within her. Anna had put that feeling next to her definition of love. 

There is no definition to what the voice did to Anna. There are no words that Anna has learned to explain to herself what she had felt when overcome with the cold. There is no denying that it was orgasmic. Seismically so. It was not in the slightest like the bouts of heat in her stomach when the Ice Harvester gets deep enough within her. No, that is a fleeting sensation, one that dies down like a wet log that can’t quite keep a flame lit. The voice had done something different than that. The core, of the Princess of Arendelle, had pulsated, it had moved like a beating heart. Her walls had pulled inward, trying to muscle in more of the cold. The very tangible cold, the voice, this shadow, had actually listened. It crawled in deeper and made her cum again and again all in the time it took her to scream. 

Anna didn’t know sex. Not anymore. She did know more things, new things. She knows that the voice has all five senses, even taste. What other reason would it have had to have the ice feel like it was lapping at her centre? Why else would have the cold felt like a tongue along hers? The smell of Anna’s excitement filled the closed off space. It struck the Princess to have smelled herself. It is what confirmed what had transpired more than the burning sensation in her stomach. Sex always has a smell but never fully hers. There is always someone else who overpowers Anna. In the attic, the Princess felt completely shared, she let the voice take her and it did. It took all of her, with all its senses. 

It felt so real to have been fucked. However surreal it also was, the voice has never felt more real. This strange entity exists. The connection Anna feels now, it gives her a tenable hope that the voice must belong to a body, one that can smell, taste, touch, hear, and speak. Anna had not let herself think about sex right after it happened. She had something better on her mind. Anna has absolute certainty that there is more to the voice. What Anna feels when she is with the voice is its power. The power has to come from something, someone. Her. Anna can give the voice back all of her senses excluding one. Anna wants to touch Her. 

It is Anna’s birthday. Her mother died on a Sunday, on a Monday the Castle fell into its black state of mourning and now, on Tuesday Anna sits alone, around a small round table set for four. Anna is finally letting herself think about sex as she looks at the elephant she has constructed by folding four deeply green cloth napkins together. 

It is cute, this elephant. It reminds Anna of an old figurine she had as a child. She used to pretend it could fly with its ears. The Princess once had a complex set of white figurines. The elephant is not even one of her favourites. Still she thinks of how happy she was when it was in her hands. She remembers it as big, as filling her palm. But now she knows it was small, just like she was. The Princess feels a bit ashamed that she is capable of feeling that again. The day after her mother died, under the touch of the voice, the elephant was as magical as the one that could fly when Anna was a kid. Anna feels, for once in her life, like if she has grown. 

The cold isn’t with her now. It did not follow into the Royal suites. When the staff come in to set a plate down in front of Anna, they seem relieved that there is no chill here. They linger for an uncharacteristically longer time, wishing Anna a _ Happy Birthday _ simply for a chance to warm up. 

“Thank you,” Anna says, taking the words to heart. She is not often recognized. She repeats her words when the plate to her right is served. “Is my father joining me?” 

“From my understating,” Anna is answered with a bow. She quite suddenly feels excitement and dread. She feels both like the child that played with toys and the child that spins an axe. 

“Leave us,” The King states his presence. Anna’s back is to the doorway. Looking forward, she can only see the storm raging over the fjord. Anna hears the obliging scattering of feet as the group of servants, taking refuge in the unusually warm room, retreat. The King takes his seat. He yanks on the head of the elephant and places his napkin over his lap. Anna takes its ass, and the entire structure just crumbles into a heap. 

Anna fidgets with the remaining napkins. She doesn’t know what else to do. The King’s body is present but his mind doesn’t give it any commands. He is sitting with his fingers still on the soft fabric of the napkin under the table. He does not move to feed himself. Her father just stares blankly. Anna folds two roses and then places them on her mother’s plate. When she picks up her silverware he does so too. The King doesn’t take his eyes off the chair in front of him. Anna looks forward at the always empty seat. They both bring their forks to their mouths without ever looking down at their plates. 

The Princess has never sat down with just her father. It is either alone or with her mother, rarely the family of three, but never father and daughter. Anna is sure her father is having the same thought as he looks at the spot on the table that was once kept warm by the Queen. Anna feels that loss, but somehow the seat in front of her still haunts her more. She breaks the silence for her own sake, because she hates missing the absence of no one, she hates missing it more than her mother. 

“I was in Corona almost three years. I left on my 13th birthday.” Anna cringes at the sentence the moment it leaves her mouth. She knows she will not receive the same kind words the people paid to serve the Princess tribute to her. She doesn’t. 

“Lot of good that did.” Anna tenses. It is uncomfortable how warm the room is, hard to take breaths of heat. She is trying to remove this moment from the fuel she felt yesterday, because she is in no position to successfully push the King. She decides to press him instead. 

“Arendelle has been consumed since. Do you think that it might correlate?” If her father thinks her stupid Anna adds a tone of that in her observation. The King is displeased by the subject. There is a clink made by his cutlery dropping against his plate. 

“I don’t know what your mother told you about the Change of Seasons but anything the Queen said must have been in delirium.” The King puts his palms flat on both sides of his meals and begins to rise. He’s declaring the end of this exchange. The temperature outside the castle is still dropping slowly. The voice is focused on the end of the storm. If it succeeds, Anna’s father will be able to send Anna away for any little mistake. 

“Then set it straight for me.” She proceeds carefully, wanting to get something from him without condemning herself. 

“It’s not my information to give.” Anna tries not to roll her eyes.  _ Whose information is it then?  _ She wishes to ask, but it’s too forward. 

“You don’t understand, I need to know.”

“Tread lightly Anna. A lot has been sacrificed to keep this from surfacing, much in your name.” Anna cannot help but react. 

“Me? What do I have to do with it?”

“You are the next Queen of Arendelle are you not?” It’s a veiled truth, an answer that answers nothing. 

“Exactly why I should know.”

“You need to drop this.” Now the King puts his weight on his hands and pushes his chair back. He looms over his only child. 

“I won’t.” Anna says with her neck craned back to meet his eyes. 

“Whatever your mother told you, whatever you think you know, Anna, it’s wrong. You won’t find the answers you seek. Believe me when I say, winter is internal. Don’t lose yourself to the same hope your mother did.” This may be the kindest her father has been to Anna in years. 

Maybe if it was still Sunday she would have accepted this as a gift, an out to all the pressure she has. Anna wants to save Arendelle and the King just absolved her of that burden. He no longer believes his land is capable of salvation. Yet, Monday happened. Anna finds herself more than burdened. She is desperate. Arendelle is not so much on Anna’s mind this Tuesday. She just wants to get to the voice. If she can, Anna now believes she will survive this, even if Arendelle will not. If she can just be touched by the voice, all the twisted and dark things about her will not matter, just as they did not matter, in her afterglow, up in the attic. Her desperation is now to touch back. If division brought forth the winter, then unity could thaw. 

“I’m sorry. You’re right, father. I thought that mother’s mutterings might have meant something. It just doesn’t make any sense that Arendelle and she suffer. Suffered.” 

“Don’t try to make sense of it. Just try to make yourself a Queen close to the one your mother once was.” Anna knows the  _ once _ her father speaks of is one that existed over a decade ago. 

“Thank you for attending,” Anna answers. The King seems relieved to be able to retreat. Anna feels it too. They are better apart. The less she hears his voice the easier it will be to force answers out of him. Anna wants to hate him, for if it comes to it, she needs to be able to take off his head, just like he took the one from her elephant. 

She doesn’t finish her meal. Anna follows the halls into the libraries. It is a busy place, Arendellians do not have that many pastimes within the Castle. This room used to suffer from quiet. The books here only had Anna’s fingerprints on them. Now they have bent spines, water stains, and earmarked pages. Anna gives nods to the people that look up at her with heartbroken eyes. She bows to those that offer their condolences. It slows her but she knows no one will disrupt her as soon as she gets to a set of old doors holding Arendelle’s archives back. 

The Princess closes the doors behind her. The smell here is heavy of dust. Anna can immediately feel the granules inflame her nasal passage, she holds back a sneeze but the pressure gives her an instant headache. Anna expects it will get worse. She’s come here many times throughout the years. She’s read about the storms that plague Arendelle from the documents here, back when she thought she was the source of a deadly winter. 

Anna has already made a detailed timeline. She has compiled what the winters have touched and when. What she is missing is the why. Her last conversation with the Queen had left Anna feeling like the cold is what knocked her mother off her feet. Her father may have just confirmed that. It is what took Anna’s easy life as a princess away. Anna was five then. 

The first thing the Princess looks to is that year. She discovers that inexplicable storms were already part of history before then. They started mildly eight years prior, almost two full decades ago. Still a pattern, Anna has not seen before, collaborates the intensity of the storms matching the Princess’s predicted timeline. This timeline speaks to years of cold spells, changes of seasons that would never naturally occur, suddenly hitting more often and harder. 

More or less, eleven years ago winters worsened, more or less eleven years ago Anna lost her mother the first time. Anna does something she had given up on, she reminisces. It’s hard a thought, to try to draw an image of her mother’s smile. The first thing Anna envisions is her mother swaying. Anna is tucked into her bed, there is a powerful pull that sleep has on her, she’s already snoring but she still manages to stay awake. She is half out of consciousness. Her legs are so short that they aren’t that far away from her pillow, she is but a child. Her mother has just kissed her goodnight, while her lips were still emanating the words of a song. 

Anna knows this song, the voice has sung it to her on occasion. Anna can hear it clearer when it plays in her mind with the voice’s once childlike tone, but in this drawn memory, it is her mother’s sweet voice alone. The Queen is singing out towards the fjord, her likeness illuminated by the moonlight coming into Anna’s old bedroom. She’s holding something. The Queen is singing to the Princess, but she isn’t singing to Anna. Before Anna can make out who is in her mother’s arms, she falls into the sleep that is calling her. 

Anna can conjure many more memories of her mother, now that she lets herself think of the woman that started off her life. But there isn’t a single other moment when Anna sees another child in her place, in her mother’s arms. It makes so little sense. Anna wants to believe in that first memory she brought to herself, but it seems so impossible that there could be someone else. Anna was far too lonely of a child for there to have been someone else. Or was she? Before the change of seasons worsened the state of Arendelle, Anna did not know solitude. 

11 years ago, less, Anna had forced herself to stop yearning for the early days of her life. So much so, that the Princess has poisoned every other day she had, just to make it seem impossible for things to return to that state. What had happened then? Anna asks herself. Why had things shifted? Why had her mother locked herself away in her bed? Anna knows the answer but she refuses to think it. Instead she tears herself away from the mappings of storms and follows the bookshelves down to the newspapers. Her eyes scan the years, until she is somewhere close to the last day she might have seen her mother’s genuine smile. 

The Princess pulls out one document after the next, finding the obituaries listed to each individual day, looking for a face. She doesn’t let herself think, she doesn’t let herself envision the face the voice had shown Anna up in the attics. Still it is that face Anna is looking for. These pages are quite far in the past, most of these stories of death paired with simple sketches, some only afforded to print names. Only the most rich or royal have actual photographs next to their obituaries.

Anna combs through four months worth before she nears a date she knows well. The date the storms hit at their most fiercest, that added more obituaries down the line. Anna is three years back in the past from that exact day that she met the voice. The Princess pulls out that newspaper without letting herself hesitate. When she flips it over she doesn’t see anything of interest, nothing that would confirm her worst fear that the body of the voice is dead. She sighs in relief, as she lets herself think of the black cloak she had worn to the funeral of someone whose name she did not know. The little Princess pretended she was bat, as she flew she collided with her mother. The Queen’s face was red. Not in anger, but from the grief, the white of her eyes were red, that was enough to confirm her pain. 

Who had died? Anna reads the couple of names on this page. They tell her nothing, she combs through the newspaper, the next day could tell her more. That newspaper is very much the same. There is no relevance, no mentions of the storm. It is such a large part of Arenedelle’s history but it doesn’t seem to be printed in the past, unlike the weather reports Anna has been working with. All reads it all again, slower this time she discovers her problem. She is not looking at the days surrounding the first devastating storm, days upon days are missing from the archives. 

Erased. The voice had used that word. It had said it felt erased. This isn’t faded away, this is not even forgotten. The information Anna is looking for has been erased. Taken away. Hidden. While the texts Anna seeks can still confirm that the voice had died, Anna wants to wish that it is just hidden. 

The cold did not follow Anna into the archives, it has largely left her on her Birthday. The Princess feels hot in this old dusty space. Her headache is intense, it feels like her brain is pulsating itself against the inside of her skull, jostled, like whiplash. There is so much information here but still no answers. There is one more place Anna can look. It feels like her mind is swelling up just to make room for this grand and stupid thought. 

The graveyard. The one that is so frozen that her mother cannot be immortalized by the hollow ground underneath it. Anna has no idea how many feet of snow pile high over the tombstones there but she has a memory of her bat cape blowing in a cold wind, of her mother’s red face and the King looking down at a black rock collected from the bay of the fjord. Everyone is overwhelmed with sadness excluding Anna. Who had been lost? Was the pain Anna felt right now penance for being incapable of feeling it along with the rest of her Kingdom? Was her entire life a punishment for not caring to remember the name of a dead stranger? 

Anna has never asked the voice if it is dead. She knows that the cold did not follow the Princess in here because the voice is battling the tempest. When Anna parted from the voice the night prior, she had gone with a determination to find out enough to be led to its source. And the voice, it had sworn to fight off the storm. Anna had thought that it would all be possible if they fought the cold together. She realizes now that they are actually apart. 

There are no answers here, there are no answers in the attic. If Anna wants to get to the bottom of this she will have to find them where the voice is fighting. A visit to the attic is a must. She will have to ask it a question it might not be able to answer. 

Is  _ She _ dead? 

The Stranger is waiting for her outside the library. He quotes a few of the Princess’ subjects saying that she was lost in the archives. The smile he gives Anna tears into her. He manages to show his excitement to see her while still softening his eyes to her plight. He radiates comfort. Pulled into his chest for an embrace, Anna wonders what punishment she might receive for never wanting to learn his name. 

“I have something to show you,” the Ice Harvester says, his smile now adds a bit of charm to his empathy. His sweaty hand cups hers as he takes an eager pace down the hall. Anna follows, knowing that the direction is the one she means to go into anyways. At the door to his bedroom, the Stranger is bouncing on his heels, his keenness having him fall into a sort of dance. Anna’s heart seems to be hearing the same song. The thought of another reunion with the voice is overpowering the things she dreads about climbing up to the attic, it is even overriding the apprehension she has about the conversation that needs to be addressed.

The door is unlocked, the stranger holds it open for the Princess. She pushes past him into the small space that used to just be a hallway. Crammed into it is what is making the man at the door so ardent. The bunk bed is gone, or what Anna uses to leverage herself up to the hatch, in its place is a mattress on the floor. It isn’t even four inches thick yet it is wide enough for two people to share. 

“Happy Birthday,” the stranger says to Anna’s back. It is lost to the Ice Harvester why Anna cannot summon any happiness at the sight. He is still so excited by his statement. He reaches past her and grabs at a large reindeer pelt and drapes it over the Princess. 

“You always say it’s too cold to sleep here, that the beds aren’t big enough for us to spend the night together. Honestly after all that’s gone on lately, I can’t bear the thought of you sneaking out at night, of you being alone. I couldn’t think of a better way to prove to you that you have someone on your side than to be able to be here with you.” When his statement ends he wraps his arms around the Princess encircling her waist, pressing his chest over her. The new blanket is between them and it doubles the heat coming off of Anna’s lover. Anna wonders if he can tell that the blanket isn’t needed. The cold isn’t in this room right now, it has not built up ice around the hatch waiting to receive the Princess. 

Anna assumes that if the ice comes to her, together, Anna and the voice can find a way to aid her up into the attic. Exposing the cold like that would be quite a risk, having no excuse to leave the stranger’s bed will also raise suspicion. It can be done, just not very often. The warmth on Anna’s back is uncomfortable, but it is also telling her to trust it. The words the ice harvester uses are sweetness. She tries to not like it. The feeling of a real body pressed against her. Anna tries and fails, just like she always fails. She wants to hurt this person for taking away her means, but she also wants him to comfort it away. 

She wishes she had just beaten him the first night she entered the room. Anna had not been confident enough in her skills to overpower a man with her axe as effectively as she can with her body. The Princess should be angry with the way he starts to dig his fingers into the collar of her dress, trying to pull it back so find a piece of her skin to cover with his lips. But she trained him to want to fuck her. There isn’t a single strain of his old anxiety pouring out of his mouth. Anna lets herself fall to her belly. He mounts her. Bunching up that stupid pelt, it’s in both their way. Anna usually undresses herself, so when he goes to reach under her dress, he pulls back as if the blade strapped to her thigh has just been forged and is still on fire. 

“Why do you have that?” he asks. Anna is still face down on her birthday present. It’s lumpy and cheap. It smells like someone Anna doesn’t know. She wishes she could stay face down, not move an inch until the stranger is done with her. Then turn on her back and pray that the cold can lift her up and pull her away from him, replace him. She wishes instead of responding. 

“Anna you have hundreds of men who have taken oaths to pick up arms in your honour. You don’t need to have that, you are inviting danger in. You have no other reason than to hurt yourself.” 

“I know how to wield it.” She says defensively, turning on her side to face him. He doesn’t take offence, his chest puffs up a bit. He reaches back down to her and runs his hands through her hair, accidentally pulling a few strands out of her braid 

“I’ve heard.” He’s proud? He’s proud she defended herself. 

“Are you going to undress me or not?” Anna says. She feels a pressing need to deflect the care in his voice. 

“I’m trying to talk to you.” He says softly. “I don’t understand you Princess. I went to report for duty today, my entire team got sent out an hour ago. I was held back. Why would you do that and then shut me out?” 

“I didn’t.” Anna starts to feel a bit guilty to have not even had the idea cross her mind. She had worried, she got that far. She is likely capable of keeping the stranger out of the cold. She just didn’t stop looking at the bigger picture. Anna thinks of his men outside of the castle. Even with the work the voice has done against it, the wind is still raging, no single minus degree points takes away from the harshness of that gale. They could be dead now even as they speak. If this ice harvester was out there, he wouldn’t be here, being a bulwark between Anna and the voice. 

“It was a royal decree of sorts.” There are only two surviving members of the royal family that can sign a decree into action. What does Anna’s father have to do with the stranger? 

“Another Birthday present I guess,” she says flatly. She knows she should add a  _ I’m glad you’re here _ but she doesn’t have it in her. She’s torn about this stranger. Or maybe she’s not. Maybe it’s just too difficult to reconcile his perfection with her futility. Anna wants him out of the way but she doesn’t want him dead. She wants his comfort but she doesn’t know if she wants to give her body to him anymore, not after Anna let the voice have it. Right now, Anna’s body is the only one Anna was sure that the voice actually owns. 

“It’s warmer in here. I think the boys are going to be alright out there. The storm is passing. We’ll get the ice we need to pay for rations. Not all is lost. You must hate hearing that after what happened to your mother, but there is hope yet.” Anna sees the strain in the ice harvester’s face, he wears all his emotions freely. He worries over his comrades but over the Princess more. Anna feels that. 

She smiles at him. It isn’t his fault she tells herself. The Princess reaches into her dress. She pulls out her axe. He shrinks a little, seemingly hating the sight of it. She twirls it playfully just once and then drives the blade into his small dresser. He squeals at the sound of the thud and Anna gives herself permission to laugh. 

“You’re right,” she says with a wink. “I don’t need an axe. I can overpower any man with these.” Anna balls up her fists and brings them up near her ears, she flexes her biceps. Before the stranger can finish his chuckle, she lunges forward at him. If they were on a twin sized bed, he would have fallen to the ground but now he lands comfortably pinned by the Princess. Anna had thought that her body was a payment but his eyes have a shine to them. As an act of contrition, she can be a gift to him. She doesn’t have anything else to repay him with. 

“I like you like this,” he whispers. Anna readies herself. She puts her weight into her knees and lowers herself slowly to him. She hasn’t kissed him in days. His eyes open wide as she shuts hers. His lips respond with barely any movement, she pushes her remorse into his mouth, but he doesn’t react. 

“The hatch isn’t iced up,” his words beat against her lips. “The lock is even gone.” 

Anna’s body instantly goes into a panic. Internally her blood starts pumping, she even starts to feel it push against the tender skin of her lips. His smile is against that rush of blood. She pulls her head back slightly. 

“We should go up there,” He’s full of childlike glee. 

“No,” is all Anna can think of saying. Her blood seems to be everywhere but her brain. She feels the pulse on her fingers next, so she reaches down and takes a hand full of the Stranger’s crotch. “We’re busy,” she adds. 

He responds well to her forwardness, in her hand and with a flash of hunger toning down his eagerness. “Let’s take it up there.” Gone is the boy that was so frightened of Anna’s touch and in his place is a man. That scares Anna, because men call all the shots. 

“I have you where I want you.” Her fingers start to play. She just wants this idea out of his head, just for long enough for her to manage something so it never pops into his mind again. 

“I have you forever,” his neck pops up to leverage a small peck on Anna’s lips. “This thaw, like all others, is fleeting. Let’s go explore what it is doing to that frozen attic. Imagine what we will find.” 

“It’s too high up.” Anna counters. She has the image of Her made up of snow, suddenly standing in the attic exposing herself to be found. Anna wants to find the voice, and realizes just now, that if she ever does, she needs to make sure she’s the only one. 

“I’ll go grab a ladder.” The ice harvester did not take Anna’s words as a deterrent. Quite the opposite, he’s encouraged that it was not another  _ no.  _

“In this condition?” Anna accentuates her point with a buck of her hips. She hasn’t let go of her position on top of him. She tries to make it more exciting by lowering her lips to his ear. 

“No one will see.” He counters, but he’s moving in the same jive as his Princess. Anna hopes she can turn his idea into nothing but foreplay. 

“It’s early evening. This place is crawling people.” She says the word  _ crawling  _ with her tongue sliding up from the peak of his jaw line up behind his ear. He shudders. Anna runs her cupped hand the length of his growing erection. If they ever bothered to fully undress each other she would have him by now. 

“I’ll be in and out.” His words do not come out as clearly. Anna keeps her focus on being undeniable. She doesn’t think of the voice, if she can focus on the ice harvester she might be able to best him. 

“You don’t have to be, if you stay in our new bed with me.” The slur in Anna’s tone just makes the stranger fall into a hysterical laughter. Anna is unsure of how the innuendo failed her. The stranger doesn’t need much force to pick up his laughing body and shove Anna aside as he goes. 

“There is never anything to do in this place. Let’s live a little,” he says as he runs the back of his wrist along his eyes, wiping away happy tears. Anna isn’t sure if she has ever seen those before. 

“If you move from that spot it’s to get undressed.” He tells her. He is saying he wants her, but Anna cannot help but feel like her body has failed her. She isn’t enough to keep him in bed. 

“Well then go!” She spouts, flicking her wrists at him, encouraging him to get out of the warm space. She could do with the heat emanating off of him gone. 

“I didn’t know you were feisty.” The stranger is still laughing as he closes the door behind him. Anna practically lunges out of the bed and puts the lock on the door. She looks up at the hatch. 

“What’s wrong with you? Freeze it shut! He’s going to come back. He has a key to the room:” Anna gets no response. She doesn’t know how well the voice can hear from down here. Yet it has said enough to Anna to have her know it grasps a lot about what happens in this chamber.

“Where are you?” Anna asks desperately. It’s hot in this room, hotter than she had been at the breakfast table, and in the archives. “You need to freeze the hatch.” 

“Where are you?” Anna asks the ceiling. The voice always responds to that question. There’s no easy way to climb up. Not even on the hutch could aid Anna close the distance. Going up isn’t even an option, the ice harvester is only going to follow. 

Anna sinks to the floor. She brings her body into herself. She feels the need to tear at the skin between her legs even though the ice harvester didn’t get anywhere close to her. He did say he was afraid of her hurting herself. The way her peasant axe is pressed into the hutch is almost like it is calling at Anna to hack. The Princess reaches for it, if she’s bleeding out, the stranger’s concern for her will override this silly notion that there is anything good that can come from the attic. Anna is more than willing to bleed for Her. 

There is no trace of the voice around Anna now, that entity is gone, fighting for the Princess of Arendelle. Yes, it does not seem that the change of seasons wields its power for any other reason except for Anna. It has even claimed that a battle between the cold is a battle with itself. The temperature is dropping. Is it making itself bleed then? What is it winning, and what is it losing, when and if, it defeats the raging storm? The voice is fighting for Anna but will it get to have her if it wins? 

Anna wonders if opening her skin is a battle in the name of the voice or just another way that Anna can make herself feel little. The girl racks her mind, in it are so many desires, so many thoughts, so many different directions. The Princess can never land on a plan of action. She doesn’t know if what is in her mind is good, is worthy or even enough. 

It would hurt the ice harvester to find her in such a state after he had left smiling. It would hurt the voice to know that while it is suffering, Anna caused herself pain. The Princess sits up. She looks back at the attic. She’s never seen the hatch look so ordinary. Nothing about it calls to her like it has every single time she has reached for it. It doesn’t feel like there is any enchantment behind that door. Where is the change of season? 

Anna rises to her feet. She grips the wooden handle of her axe. If she wants to be with Her, there is only one place the Princess knows She is for sure. Anna’s back in the hall, she takes even steps knowing that she will have to rest her heart now in order to use it full force soon. The men that crowd these halls are getting used to the sight of her here, they tip their hats instead of wiggling their eyebrows. Many do not give her a second glance, even though she did not stow her axe. 

“Anna? Where are you going?’ The stranger calls out from down the hall. He has a small ladder under his arm.

“Princess Anna?” He says louder. “What are you doing?” 

“Go back to the room.” She shots over her shoulder. She quickens her pace aware the stranger will not listen. The hall rings with the crash of the ladder being dropped and running feet towards the Princess of Arendelle. The ice harvester’s rough hands yank at Anna’s dress. He pulls on whatever he can wrap his fingers around. Anna stumbles trying to keep her forward motion. 

“Let me go!” Anna says as she pulls at her gown. She slips out of his grasps and begins to lift her knees. She runs through the halls giving no mind to the gasps of her subjects. The stranger does not seem to mind the attention. The scene does not deter him as he rushes to catch up, calling out her name as he goes. 

Anna crosses into the courtyard. It was long ago boarded up, enclosed to shut out the cold. She rounds a corner and listens for her name being called. The male voice is urgent as it nears. Anna puts out the handle of her axe and his inertia crashes into it. He doubles over. Anna takes the chance to bring a closed fist into his bottom teeth. 

“Stay.” The Princess of Arendelle demands. She doesn’t take an extra moment to look at the tears that fall as the stranger rubs his jaw. The guards at the gates watch, they flinch as the Princess approaches. They are the same men keeping them sealed the day prior. One of them had followed Anna up and taken her frozen unconscious form back to the warmth of the castle, another had helped ensure word of the Princess’ recklessness was kept away from the King. 

“Princess,” a guard stands his ground. 

“Please reconsider,” the other begs. 

“Let me through.” They have no choice but to oblige. The gates let out a scream as the rust, from being sealed shut for so long, pierces the air. Anna pulls herself up the snowbank much faster than before. She can feel the shift. It can be hard to distinguish cold from cold but this chill is slightly more bearable. Yet once it hits her bones, Anna knows it will have the same crippling effect no matter the temperature. Only quick movements will cause enough friction to get her to the fjord, where Anna once saw Her fighting.

It’s a challenge to get her bearings. The white of the storm has blown over any and all landmarks. The wind is unhinged, it whisks at all angles. A couple hundred steps away from the castle and Anna can no longer see it behind her. Yet she has an advantage. The Princess seems to be drawn to Her. She follows her feet instead of direction. 

_ Anna.  _

The Princess hears Her in the wind. It has just realized that Anna has stepped deep into the cold of the voice. 

_ Anna.  _

It’s surprised. It’s worried. Anna hears it. It’s terrified to feel Anna outside again. 

_ Anna.  _

While there is cold all around Anna, it suddenly doesn’t seem to want to touch her. It avoids coming into contact. The voice is pushing it away from her. There is wind running through the strands of the Princess’s hair but it feels like the wind that properly belongs to summer, a forceful but warm zephyr. 

_ Anna.  _

Anna’s made it. She sees the deep contrast of the rocks along the seaside. They might as well be black, because they look like the darkness of night compared to the storm. There is ice all the way into the horizon. It’s desolate, an abyss of loss, proof that Arendelle is dead. Yet Anna doesn’t feel cold. She feels the warmth of the absent sun, the one that used to shine on every single one of her birthdays, once upon a time. 

_ Anna.  _

“I hear you. I’m here.” Anna tells Her. There isn’t much but white to look at, still Anna searches for Her. 

“Anna!” A male voice cries. 

The stranger finally reaches the Princess of Arendelle. He puts a gloved hand around her wrist. It breaks the barrier of summer swirling around Anna. The cold starts to seep in, it’s coming off of the man. It’s coming for Anna. 

“I told you to stay back. You need to go now!” 

“I can’t have you trying to throw yourself away. Princess, come back with me. You will die out here.” The cold is honed on the couple, it starts shoving at them both. Anna loses her footing. The ice harvester refuses to let the wind break his hold on her. 

“No, I might be a hero,” she tells him. “But I might also die and I welcome each fate more than I welcome what the cold we feel now.” 

“You’re crazy!” His pull on her matches the heavy gust of wind. Anna is being taken away from the beach. The killer cold is back, yet Anna can still feel the voice laced within it. 

“Let me go,” She pleads. She can see that the cold isn’t only coming for her. It’s taken all the wet on the stranger and made it solid, the sweat from the pores on his head, the frozen tears he can’t shed, it’s started to harden his spit, there is ice in his screaming mouth. The storm will kill him. It is without hesitation that Anna strikes the stranger in the space between his ribs with the blade of her axe. 

When she pulls it back out, he falls backward. Anna feels the bones in her wrist pop as she slips out of his tight grasp. The stranger brings both hands over his pecks. The blood freezes instantly, it binds his gloves to the wound. 

“Run and you’ll make it.” She says. He stumbles but takes off. Anna watches him until he is deep enough into the storm that she has no confirmation whether or not she is right. 

_ Anna.  _

The voice speaks again when Anna’s boot hits the ice on the fjord. She almost instantly folds an ankle. She’s moving rather slowly, scouting herself forward instead of taking strides. The Princess cannot look forward for Her anymore. She needs to keep herself folded over, using her shoulders as a barrier to the gale. Instead, the Princess feels for Her. 

She stumbles but catches herself. She wants to call out for the voice, but with no name, she saves the energy. The cold is eating at her, it feels like it is not only piercing her skin but removing a layer with each gust. Anna slips. She can’t catch herself. Her cheek meets the ice, the tears there hold her down, frozen. 

The Princess of Arendelle left the castle to be with Her. To prove to Her and she is by Her side. Storms do not need to rage in Anna’s name, the only way Anna will leave Her ever again is in death. Anna wants to fight alongside the change of seasons. 

She feels a body drape over her. It’s cold, but not frigid like the chill it protects her from. It finds a piece of exposed skin on Anna’s face and presses it’s lips down onto her. It whispers her name,  _ Anna.  _

“I’m here!” Anna howls for the entire storm to hear. The body applies pressure on her. It’s a hug. 

_ Anna,  _ it answers before the wind rips Her apart. When it screams, it yells into the storm as loud as the thundering chant of an elephant. For a fleeting moment Anna feels the zephyr again. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of your feedback has been really uplifting and has been driving me to take this narrative very seriously. I hope you enjoy this MONSTER SIZED chapter. Thank you everyone that takes the time to comment, and those that sneak some love in with some kudos. xD also kisses to the lurkers.   
> I will admit that whatever state you are in now, is how I am leaving you for the next little while. A chapter for this fic takes me a lot of time to knock out and I am limited on that commodity this week. Just know that I will not abandon you!   
> xx


	6. Remember

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi my little elephants. xD After a long wait, here it is. The chapter I wrote got away from me and was 10k. I found the most natural stop. This is the first part of it. After some edits I will post chapter 7. I hope the wait is a day at most.
> 
> I really hope you enjoy it! leave me a review and I might run on the high and post the second part faster lol.

The darkness is cold. Colder than what she had succumbed to. If the Gods have chosen an afterlife for the Princess of Arendelle, it is especially cruel for hell to be so cold. Anna's eyes open as it sinks into her. Hell fills her ears and nose. When she opens her mouth to scream at the malice of the Gods, she takes in a mouthful of the freeze. It fills her stomach. It adds weight to the weightlessness that is this prison.

It's water. Anna starts choking on water. It reminds Anna that she has a habit of giving up too soon. If this darkness in a vast sea of water, it means she made it below the ice. There is a chance that the fjord has thawed. The Princess does not know which way is up or which is down. There is no direction in the black. She only knows that the ice has not followed her here. There is no snow around to save her life. She calls out to the Change of Season either way. But has nothing to name it but _Elephant._

"El?' The simple word escaping her lips causes a ripple in the water. A bubble forms from her lips and travels down her body. It travels up. Anna starts thrashing wildly in an attempt to catch up with it. She follows it to the surface. She keeps calling out for the voice and she follows her own, until her hand breaks the tide.

The sea is settled. The world is loud compared to the ocean. The sound of seagulls, of the wind, of the small waves crashing into the shore, sound like a concert. It sounds like summer. Anna's ears are popping, her lungs are heaving, her limbs are thrashing. She's at the surface but she is still very much drowning. She is filled with so much cold water that it drags her back down from where she came.

Anna sinks. She leaves the summer sounds behind until the heaviest part of her comes in contact with something smooth and flat. She hears a thunk and another, as her body collides onto a bed of ice. She starts to rise again. She stops fighting the cold on her back because she's been saved by it. Hands that feel like they are human touch her and for a moment she feels like her dream has come true. The voice has come out of the attic to meet her. To touch her.

She's wrong. The Ice Harvester has her. She knows his grasp too well. The arms he uses to hold her down every night are wrapped around her torso and he pushes her way from the contact of the voice and onto the rocky shore. His hands pump her chest. His lips cover hers completely. His touch is desperate. She feels her bones break before she finally feels the warm wind on her skin enter her body.

She's coughing out cold as she inhales summer. The Princess has too much water in her head to hear the growing crowd start to chant. All she hears is a few words of encouragement from the stranger. Every second word or so is cut off by the beating of her eardrums but it is not hard to fill in the blank as he says "I - you."

He says it even though there is an open wound on his chest. Anna knows he would be in less pain if she physically reached over and pulled each edge of the gash further apart from one another, than to learn she does not own a heart to give back to him. The Princess is able to bat the water out of her eyes and she sees the people of Arendelle taking off the layers of their winter clothes and rushing into the warm waters that nearly killed her. Some are rushing towards her. A few are staring at their homeland in disbelief. Anna scans as many faces as she can to see if one belongs to the voice. None of them are. Even though Anna would have not even the faintest idea what it might look like in flesh or if it is possible for it to take human form. Still she looks.

Anna is still cold. The Ice Harvester is calling out for a doctor. Her body is vibrating. Her teeth are making a rhythm so different from the hollers of Arendelle's people. Their princess is still on the brink of death. But they take their moment in the sun. Anna does not hold it against them. They deserve the heat, while she is sure she still does not.

The infirmary is quiet for a few hours, until Arendellians start lining up to pay their respects. Her stranger has not left her side but his story has moved from lip to lip. They are calling her Hero but are not yet let in to do so to her face.

Anna falls in and out of sleep and in and out of cold. When awake she averts the gaze of the stranger, not wanting to look at the gauze wrapped around his chest. A nurse hurriedly comes to check on Anna. She places the back of her palm on the Princess's forehead and holds it there, all the while holding Anna's eyes with her own. They exchange warmth. Anna gets a smile as she tries to remember being touched in a way as simple as this. This woman looks at Anna with admiration, with thanks. Anna, who feels now her skin is met for only one, is not a fan of the touch, but the look, the look she tries to memorize. It's the first favourable glance she has received from one of her subjects, it is an advantage she knows she will need.

After her lingering, the nurse changes the Ice Harvester's dressing. The aide makes too much noise as she works, the man at Anna's bedside makes the assumption that Anna is still alert once they are finally left alone again.

"What is the first thing you would do if the season changed?" Anna doesn't answer but she cannot help but stir at the question. "It's a common question. People toss their ideas over each meal. It's been asked of me so many times. Yet I never once answered it would be this. Stuck here with you."

"You're free to go."

"Oh but I'm not. I couldn't just leave you. I don't know what you were doing out in that Fjord but I know you wanted to die. And I know I won't lose you." Anna rolls her eyes at the martyr. Most all people that have known Anna would not be at her side now. This stranger is the only person she knows of to invest in her life and death. But maybe because others see the real her, while he only knows the lies she tells him.

"That's not the story you are telling people." Anna corrects, because the praise she is receiving is as close to a lie there is. The admiration makes sense that way. The Princess is veiled by the fact that she doesn't even know the truth behind the cold. The narrative is hers to tell now. The people are hers to win, they could be as devoted as this stranger. Anna hasn't much interest in any glory but she is sure she lost her axe in the Fjord. She needs a new weapon.

"No. I said you were out there with an axe and now all of Arendelle assumes you killed the winter." He was out there with her, he knows she had little intention of going to battle. He can take an easy guess the results of her mania are to be chalked up to luck versus grit.

"What is it? What you would rather be doing?"

"Going home. I was raised by the rock trolls. They can survive well in the cold. I was forced out by it. I haven't seen my mother in three years." The word mother shakes Anna. It almost pushes out everything else the stranger admits. They both likely bid farewell to the women that raised them on the same last day of spring. But the ice harvester just won the reunion Anna will never have.

"Rock trolls?" Anna focuses. "You never told me about that when I shared my dream to you."

"Well we don't really talk." Anna almost likes the sour in his voice. She might miss being hated by all.

She expects more hate as the King of Arendelle is announced. His steps disturb the tranquility of the ill as he nears the bed comforting his heir's broken body. The King stops at the foot. He raises a flat palm at the Ice Harvester as the injured man struggles to get up.

"There are accounts that you pulled my daughter out of the Fjord. You will be handsomely rewarded. Nothing I can give you, however, can repay Arendelle's debt to you." The King bows forward, dropping himself in front of the stranger's chair. He holds the position of being lesser for a long while. Maybe he is thankful, Anna's thoughts say, but she reminds them the unlikeliness of that and decides her father must be composing himself instead.

He stands back to straight with an arm offered out. "If you are well enough. I need a private audience with the Princess"

"It's only a scratch really." The Ice Harvester accepts the aide and tries not to wince as he conceals his pain. Anna feels little guilt as he grips his chest and leaves Arendelle's Royals alone.

"You got any coin behind such a generous offer?" Anna mocks, she hopes her grin can hide the twitch in her brow. Being in the presence of the King has her heart pounding into her broken ribs. It's excitement has her seeing black splotches. Lying prone, she feels susceptible to her conscience. Her thoughts there are unkind and desperate. They call her _idiot_ for allowing herself to get hurt, for being unarmed and rendered incapable of battle. Knowing she can hold her own is one of the only comforts Anna has ever found for herself. It is as gone as the cold wind blew.

"A title for one. But what that boy has earned is both priceless and worth more than can be put into words." The King is baiting her, he stops his words to read her expression. Her lungs plead her to take deeper breaths, but she cannot get enough air through her gritted teeth.

"Your hand." The King says in punishment. He has likely learned more than Anna has about the current state of the Change of Seasons. This, to Anna, feels like a move to keep her further apart from the voice. "He will become Prince Consort."

"I don't want to marry." She claims. She hates her choice of words. She sounds like a child; she sounds as small as she feels as her father stands over her. He is the most powerful man in all of Arendelle.

"Well you should have thought about that before you started bedding him." It's a good reminder. Anna thanks the King for it. She entered that room willing to accept all consequences. It wasn't even that long ago, how her motivations have changed. While Anna was excited by the prospect of her father's approval, she's glad it hasn't come as quickly as Spring did. She does not need his good side any more.

"You can outright call me whore you know. I see through you. You are here making an appearance and are manipulating the topic away from the Change in Season. Poorly, I might add."

"Don't get so hot Anna. It's not something to discuss in such open air. More pressing is that you have just earned a chance at redemption. You might be okay with the alias _degenerate_ but you are a Princess. This may well be the only chance you will ever have to shed the embarrassment you bring to your title. Embrace Hero and follow my orders."

"Tell me its name!" Anna's voice fails the discretion the King has asked for. Her lungs fill the infirmary, they swell up her pain but she welcomes it as she does her sudden rage. She let herself feel weak to stop from thinking of the sweat on her brow and how she sits so uncomfortably under a heavy blanket. She is hot. Anna did not leave the walls of the palace to feel heat. She wanted to be taken by the cold, for the voice's zephyr to lift her up and take her away to a safe place, the safe place Anna hopes the Change of Season is hiding in.

Heat is the absence of it. Without the cold lacing Arendelle the voice is not with Anna, all of its senses are gone. Whatever imaginary string they were each holding on to is untethered. She wants to cry but instead she channels anger at the man who knows more than she, but has coyly repressed all truths from his child.

"A suite is being prepared. You'll once again be homed in our old bedroom. Where you will eventually take your husband. Anna, this is the only second chance this family has ever been granted. I will not let you throw your victory away."

"Somewhere in there was a compliment. Mind you, father I have no victory. You and I are still at war. I'm coming for the Change of Seasons. I will stop at nothing until it is free." Anna knows she looks small, weak, and sick, but her voice, it's strident, true like that of a knight.

"Erase whore but you seem to still be idiot. You know nothing of what you say."

"You live in fear of the Change of Seasons but father, I am the Winter. Do not underestimate me."

Anna means the threat. She knows the heat is overwhelming, but she has to believe that the voice will rise up in her name when it comes to it. She doesn't need to say more, her father can see his failings at keeping the Change of Seasons locked up. Cold can seep out of most anything. Maybe only a coffin would have kept the winter away.

"Let us lay the Queen to rest. Perhaps then this war you speak of will be more appropriate." He turns on a heel, used to his word being the last. Anna stares at his back as he goes. He's far enough now there is no chance at discretion.

"You're welcome by way!" she screams, like a petulant child.

The Queen is the first body to be buried in Arendelle in close to three years. Her grave is marked by a massive stone, black bedrock lifted up from the seaside. It's darkness looks like nothing but death to Anna. She rather think it's tacky than to focus on how she doesn't have much to mourn. The Princess genuinely believes her mother is better off. Her passing is a gift to the Queen. Anna convinces herself of that. The Heir to the Throne sees summer all around her but fails to see the good. What is to come is something the Princess is glad her mother will not bear any witness to.

Anna's subjects come to her eagerly, paying their respects. They are different this time around. Black is suddenly not the colour of morning but the celebration that there is more to Arendelle than just white. The people's collective sadness is nothing compared to their thanksgiving. Mourning the Queen does little to subdue their state of celebration. The death of the Queen is not the only reason Anna is not ready to accept their thanks, the Princess still has to find and release the voice. With the absence of the cold she has little hope of reaching it.

The Ice Harvester does not stray far from his apparent betrothed. He was somehow fitted in a suit just in time for this occasion. With his hair slicked back, he finally looks like a man. He seems to be purposefully at a distance. He still lingers. Any inch he can be apart from Anna is extra space for her breath in. She's still struggling at that. Even with tears in the corners of her eyes and several cursed " _No_ " 's, Anna's new handmaiden laced up her gown with zero sympathies. The forced posture of the boning in her corset makes it easier to mask her pain even if it also makes it far more acute.

Physically, she may break down into sobs, but emotionally the Princess of Arendelle is numb. If she were to allow herself any grief she would fall into hysteria. All of her subjects would witness her pain as she cried for something no one but she mourns. The sun is beaming down on the black fabric draped over Anna's shoulders. She finds herself, again, ill with heat. Alone. The stranger dares put his hand on the small of her back. She flinches.

"You're keeping yourself together nicely," he says through the corner of his mouth. A laugh rolls out of her mouth pairing with the motion of her glaring eyes. "If you've the energy to keep that up, there's something I need to tell you."

Anna accepts the offer, because the five fingers along her spine are asking to lead her away from the crowd. Distance seems like a likely relief. Anna follows the Ice Harvester's steps. He does not take Anna nearly as far as she would wish to go. They follow the curve of the ground slightly downward from the highest hill of the cemetery, leaving behind the Queen's eagle eye spot over the dead.

"It's here, somewhere." Anna starts to scan the ground along with the stranger as if she is privy to what he searches out.

She finds it first. A black stone embedded into the ground. It's not very large. It is the most common size of rocks that line the beach along the Fjord. The kind Anna used to pick up with both her arms and stumbled over as she attempted to rehome them into a new pattern. The child drew out pictures. At the end of a long afternoon hauling stones, from the windowsill of her bedroom, she could better see her arrangements. Her only completed work had been a rudimentary art piece she'd named _Snowman in the Summer._

The rock is smooth. The feel of it confirms Anna's childhood memories. It brings her back down to the Fjord but it is hard to correlate the amount of effort she had needed to move a single rock with the unremarkable size of it. As she lays a flat hand over it, she sees how much she has grown since then. There is nothing but a date engraved, one that reads of misfortune and of not being granted a chance to be big. Anna recognizes the date this child died. It is the same date Anna failed to find traces of in the archives. A year after, the first of the most brutal storms that devastated Arendelle. Plus two years and Anna was hearing a voice up in the attic. This is what the Queen died hiding.

It stirs nothing in Anna's recollection. She doesn't know the living being attached to these dates. But this child would have been there, in Anna's past.

"Why is it unmarked?" She speaks aloud. She's heard the stranger approach. He's brought her here. He wants her to see this. She had planned to search it out herself, alone, but somehow he knows something.

"It just sort of spread. Maybe even word was sent out. I heard that the Queen made a spectacle of herself, right out in the courtyard, the morning they made the announcement. It just became common practice not to talk about what happened."

"It's a lie. It has to be a lie. That's not how I remember my life. I don't remember this child." Anna winces as she brings herself back to standing. Her fingers immediately miss the smoothness of the stone. It was made perfect after years of being caressed by the ocean's waters. Anna has only felt a touch that smooth from the ice the voice can control. The sensation of it's tomb is the closest Anna can get to that being right now.

"Anna. I have to tell you something about the night before she died." Before Anna can continue to whine about how little sense it all makes, the Stranger reveals he is more familiar to her than she knows.

"You said it was destiny that brought you to my room. I was silly enough to think that it was _love_ the fates we're giving us. But now that I know what you were looking for, I couldn't have been more wrong."

"How do you know what I am looking for?"

"I was there that night. A bystander only. It was the single most important day of my life. I followed a trail of ice into troll territory. I saw a family, undoubtedly royal. It was the youngest one that was unwell. I watched the trolls save you. When you appeared to me years later, I thought back to that day and all I could see it as was a stepping stone to what you and I would become. I thought maybe that night you heard me pray for your safekeeping. You came to my door sad and broken and willing to die. I thought I was meant to be your keeper." In a different life this would be a proposal. The field of fresh green would have no markings of death, only spring's blooming flowers. The booming voices of the gulls would be chanting for love. The Stranger is tearing up, his hands clutch not a ring but guilt.

"There was so much that I didn't see, or didn't understand about that night. I thought it was all just part of a love story. But something hasn't been sitting right, not since you told me the trolls were all a dream to you, and not since you first went out into the cold." Anna wants to flare up angry as she realizes there are two players in her game. But being in the presence of the voice, even if in such a useless way, a whole decade of earth between them, Anna cannot have any emotion for anyone but it. Instead of betrayal, she just feels her sorrow.

"Anna, she was healthy when I saw her last. News of her passing shocked me. Then it became frowned upon to say her name, whatever questions I had about the turn of events weren't things I was willing to ask, in fear of losing my new homestead."

"Why don't I remember Her? Why did they take Her name from me?" Anna looks down at the dates below her. They mark the death of an eight year old child. The Princess does have a memory. It is of disinterest, of playfulness. While the rest of Arendelle was on its knees, Anna was a child wondering which wind gust would help her fly. But she feels the pain of that loss now, finally, she feels every morsel of pain she wasn't allowed to succumb to then. Her sob breaks through her gritted teeth, it stitches in her ribs. She's suddenly tired.

"I don't know." The stranger makes no move to comfort the Princess. He may know his truth is more saving than any coos he might offer. "I just know that you were dying but you were at peace. As they fixed you, you started thrashing, screaming _no_ and _please._ You were consoled by her. The kiss you spoke of. Then it was over. Your eyes were shut again but your face was knotted. A look I still see you get."

At his words, Anna tries to hold back the cascading down her face, she squeezes her eyes shut and attempts not to choke on the heat she inhales as she steadies her breath. Behind her eyelids she tries to put her memories of her dream together. The fact that the kiss was soft, smooth as the stone marking the voice's grave, and as cold as it's touch, tells Anna this is the biggest truth she's ever learned.

"It's so fucking hot." Anna yells as she pulls at the high collar around her throat. She wraps her fingers around the fabric and yanks, with elbows out, she moves desperate for some relief. The Ice Harvester stands at her side dumbly, unsure how to aid her as she fails to remove a shred of clothing. Her gracelessness causes her to stumble forward on a knee, once on the ground she has no excuse to keep herself up. With a strangled cry, she lets her entire body collapse over the headstone.

She isn't sure where the voice was buried exactly, but a child isn't so big. The Princess figures she's covering its body the way the voice did for her out in Fjord. Her crying only builds up her sweat. There is no solace here, there never is in graveyards.

Healthy. The word the Ice Harvester had used was healthy. Could that be hope? That something of this child survived enough to become the Change of Season, that there was something salvageable wielding the voice?

"You said, that time in your room, you thought my name was something else. You still know Her name?" Her voice trembles as it leaves her, she sits up to follow it, wishing to take it back.

"Yes. I do. It's -"

"No! If it is still the Change of Seasons I can save Her but if it has a name then She is the child under this rock and is as gone as my mother."

Sitting up now, Anna sees the many sets of eyes on her. The tantrum she just threw was a spectacle for everyone to see. For a moment she feels foolish until she remembers that they all knew something Anna didn't. They all know Her name, to them Anna is a Princess grieving more than one loss.

The Ice Harvester looks acutely discomforted with so much attention on him. But his attendance at this funeral ends as Anna slowly brings herself to her feet. She brushes grass off her skirt and then addresses the stranger.

"The attic. You asked me what I would do after the season changed. I would go to the attic."


	7. Real

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again guys, thank you so much for your patience. I really hope you enjoy this part. I won't make you wait so long for the next installment, I don't want to be that cruel again ;D please let me know what you think! You're comment fill me up and get me excited to keep working away!

He wants to hurt her. Anna does not need a mind reader to tell he is fuming. The Stranger keeps stretching out his neck as if he needs to twist it back into place to keep it from popping off. Still he puts his palms down on each end of a rung and bears his weight down on the ladder. He keeps it steady as Anna struggles to pull up her hurting body. The hatch feels so much heavier as a sharp pain courses through her. She struggles with it more than she ever did as a child.

She's not hopeful as she pulls herself up to stand. The attic feels so normal without any cold in it. She is, like she has been all day, over dressed. She was just in here laying on the floor, feeling a manifested content that seems more like lunacy now. The space is so empty, it was cleaned out back when she was in corona. Gone are all the crates she used to push around to make space for dancing. Her childhood trunk, and the second, the only things left behind.

"Hello?" The stranger's voice bouncing off the slanted walls of the attic jars Anna. He seems to have put his malice aside to meet someone new. His hair has fallen out of place and he looks boyishly charming again. As Anna stares at the Stranger invading her sanctuary she decides he looks stupid too.

He's not. Even with her vague explanations, he understood the way she described the voice better than, say, the girl from Corona did. Magic is a language he learned from the rock trolls. It seems easy for him to grasp that there used to be an energy here. Used to.

"No need to seek it out. It's warm. The voice isn't here anymore."

"Oh. There isn't really anything in here at all." He's disappointed. Anna bets if he was a boy growing up with her and they'd made their journey up here together, he would have lit up at the thousands of treasures riddled among old cobwebs that lost their makers to the cold.

The Ice Harvester locks eyes with the walls, he squints and approaches the furthest one. He puts his fingers up and runs them over the barrier. He seems to be seeking out his trade, ice. Anna sighs, she knows there is nothing of the voice here, but still she decides it best to follow the Stranger's lead.

She feels disconnected to the task, so she brings the conversation to where they left it last, somewhere between the deadly winter and the advantage she so freely took of the friendly Stranger.

"I only came back up here so I could leave Arendelle again. I wanted to get back to a girl I haven't thought about until just now. I feel like I can't remember her anymore. I was just kissing her and now she barely exists to me." The stranger has to collect himself. Anna's weak conversational skills tense his shoulder up to his ears.

"I'm really sorry, but nothing matters to me like the Change of Seasons does. It isn't because you aren't a fit match for me. It's because I was called here. Because I have a duty to set this right. I don't know what I will be like once this is over. Likely the same girl with no real allegiance, no set mind, whose whims and wishes waiver. But everything else, well only the Gods know how things may change." This is Anna's apology. The Ice Harvester turns to hear her. He nods, maybe not in acceptance, but knowing that this is bigger than their affair.

"I used you and I will continue to do so. But on the other side of this I won't ever, ever again."

The man in the funeral garb responds by looking back at the wall. He drops his forehead there. He knows magic. He knows the attic is a dead end. Anna can't bear the sight of his turmoil. Her attention goes to the only other thing in the room. The old trunks, that have faded in time, that or have lost colour to the layers of dust.

Anna knows exactly what she will see when she opens the one that doesn't belong to her. She only looked into it once, but it was the most frightful of all the things that ever happened to her here.

The gloves are still in the messed up pile Anna tossed them back into, one inside from her having slipped each of her fingers inside. It had felt so wrong to have that blue satin on her skin. But she's not a child anymore, and today, coming into contact with something that was Hers, sounds like a gift.

The first thing she grabs lives under the gloves. It's a crochet penguin with an odd looking button eye. She had been too afraid to take it to the kids in the castle that fateful night. Now she tosses it in the direction of the stranger, who'd started to approach with curiosity.

"Keep that safe will yah?" She practically demands of him and turns her attention back onto the gloves. She pulls the one right side out again and tries to get her adult hand inside. She hears the voice, but only in memory. What a child it once was.

"You said you saw Her right?"

"Yes."

"Were Her hands big?" Anna asks as she starts examining the other gloves in the bunch.

"What? No, I don't know."

"She was eight." Anna doesn't add _when She died._ "These gloves. They are different sizes, just barely, but they appear tailored to fit. They get bigger."

Anna doesn't have to look up at the man to know his eyebrows are raised, impressed by the observation. He accepts the pair Anna hands him. "These ones. I put them on when I was nine. They are the smallest. Why would they get bigger if she didn't?"

"They put someone in the ground Anna." He smacks her on the shoulder with the gloves as he lets go of his hold of them. They sit draped over her much like a hand would if it was offering condolences.

"Not her!" Anna lashes. "The voice is not in here right now, but it never was. This is just a place it could reach. Like it could reach the edge of the Fjord. It was strongest here. Maybe we're close to it now?"

"These walls don't lead anywhere." Anna ignores the Stranger's logic, she's told herself _no_ to all the impossibilities enough times.

"I think I need to take this to the King now." Now, means now. Anna slams the trunk shut and heads back to the hatch.

"Princess, the winter is over. Wouldn't it just be safer to let it lie? Shouldn't we enjoy the sun?" The Ice Harvester is on her trail offering his hand so she can lower herself down.

She knows the pain in her chest is there but she doesn't register it as she takes a bit of a leap down a few rungs. Looking up at him she says, "The sun always sets. The seasons always change. The cold will return. It's time to try something new."

"What if winter is already the best possible outcome? Maybe this voice was put away because it can get some much worse than that." Anna moves to keep exiting but the man strengthens his hold on her.

"No." She says clearly. "Every time time the storms hit at the fiercest it was because we were apart. It used to happen on the Anniversary of us losing each other. Winter came every time I abandoned it."

"We are meant to be together. Just because it's hot out there and warm in here doesn't mean the storm stopped. The winter that raged over Arendelle is still within the Change of Seasons. I won't let it suffer alone."

"You think you can take on the King?" Anna's feet are on the floor now, she looks up into the empty attic. The Stranger is looking down at her, the worry replaces everything he may feel. Anna thinks he might be her keeper after all.

"Can you get me an axe?" Anna asks, no longer focused on him but recreating different ways she will address her father.

"That bastard took Her from me. Took away my memory of Her. He made sure Her name was never said again so much so that even She forgot it." Anna repeats that to herself over and over again as she prepares for what is to come.

An hour passes. Anna takes most of it sitting, focusing on the pain of her broken bones and trying to settle her strength. She's meant to be attending a dinner. Her father has worked her back into the schedule, trying to make a real Princess of her. He'd forced her attendance, citing he needed a night in to himself after burying his wife. Maybe the staff did not tell him of Anna's absence. They may not be able to find her, but the first place the King would look is in the men's barracks.

The Ice Harvester returns with a red face, his tongue almost falling out of his mouth from panting. He has what Anna asked for in his hands. She's spent the hour pent up, with adrenaline coursing through her with no outlet. It escapes her in a burst of laughter.

"What?"

"What is that?" She says through her fingers. Her laughter mixes with cries as her abs pull into the three fractured ribs the Stranger gave her. He smiles nervously along as he holds up the axe. It will at least look a bit bigger in her hands. It's just a wood maul, a simple blockbuster, that has seen a lifetime of splitting wood.

"I sharpened it." Comes the defense. Anna tries to suck in a breath to halt the pain but her cackles do not relent. "I got two."

"Okay, let's go threaten the King with kids toys! You still got that penguin?"

"Of course," the stranger says, any amusement in him having vanished at Anna's mocking tone.

"Okay, I'm sorry. Thank you." Anna says through a wince. She needs to stop laughing so she brings her hands to her ears. They get red when she's happy, and hot. The heat coming off them reminds her of her task.

She eventually receives the both mauls and straps each to her ankles. They are sharp, she can give the Stranger credit for that. But she needs a better plan and works on it as she marches down the corridors. As she goes her people stand to attention. They clap for her, call her name, they fall to their knees in praise. Some reach farther to touch her. They all follow. Without the gravity of the funeral, they have been waiting for a chance to praise her and do so in rejoice.

The Princess of Arendelle keeps herself strident as she pushes forward. She takes the steps of the castle up towards the Royal Suites. The Stranger stays at the foot of them, not having permission to go any further. He stays with the crowd that has gathered. They know not what they cheer for, but Anna let's it feed her goal. At the top of the stairs, she turns back to see her people.

Maybe it's fate. Maybe the Gods did have a hand in all of this, or maybe Anna's planning mind finally caught up to her, but she's standing next to a row of Suits of Armour. She used to play with them, bring them to life with her imagination, and sometimes accidentally take them apart. They all hold halberd axes. Arendelle's most praised weapon. Something only their finest soldiers wield.

Anna reaches out for the closest one, and yanks at it carelessly. The entire shadow knight falls forward and makes a clunk that echoes in the foyer below. The Princess, at least, suspected it but the eyes on her did not. She knows the story of her besting winter is being passed along, embellished between each new set of lips. She takes the opportunity to make a show of it. No one is the wiser as she raises the halberd axe with one arm over head.

It's lighter than it should be, likely crafted as decor and not to kill. Her ribs are thankful, but she can tell it's also dull. The point on top of the eye is the only part that will be of much use. Other than its intimidating size is as useless as the ones the Stranger presented her. Maybe all together she has enough to take charge of the Change of Seasons.

Anna gives the weapon an easy twirl in her arms. She slashes it in front of her, cutting the air just as loudly as the crowd below her bellows. She gives them a bit of a bow, the show could have been longer, but she has to keep her pain for her confrontation with the King. When she straightens her back all of her subjects are still looking respectfully at the floor. Anna runs off before they can take another look at her.

The guards around her father's suite peered over after hearing the horrible clank of the fallen armour. They drop their heads in honour of their Princess. She gives them the childish smile they have seen grace her for sixteen years now.

"Your Highness," the men claim after their bow.

"Is my father in? Earlier he asked that we have a moment to celebrate summer together. I assume this a good time, since he's locked himself in for the night." It isn't hard for Anna to replace her confidence with a fallen face, she just focuses on the pain at her side.

"I will announce you."

"No need. Not on this day." Anna is let in, with the halberd still in hand. To be fair, it's just a large toy, and her face is much more childish than her soul is. She hasn't been in her father's suites since she still played with toys at the other end of his desk. She used to try to make all the noises of her figurines in her mind so as not to bother the very occupied King. Every time the little Princess would fail. They never exited the room together, her father always kicked Anna out.

The creeping memory of her father looking away from his papers to watch her deeply unsettles Anna. She did not know there was such deceit between them then. Untainted the memory is warm. It makes her hold on her weapon wet with sweat. She wants to focus on the lies not the little bits of tenderness she got from the King. They used to be enough to hold the Princess over for days. The few times he took her hand to lead her to the door felt like the sweetest kind of heat.

But the suite isn't as warm as the Castle has been. It's telling, it's exciting. There are spaces here that Anna has never been in, closed doors that belonged to the King's eyes only. Anna draws the floor plan in her head. There were plenty off-limits spaces to her as a child. One of these thresholds may have what she so desperately seeks.

Anna seeks out her father. She moves away from the low cold she feels and towards the drawing room. He's expecting her. He's leaning in front of his desk with his arms crossed over his chest. The King was having a moment alone. Anna can tell he was crying even though he seems to have collected himself. The button of his collar is undone. It shows off his neck and the strained tendons that fix his head in place. Anna's mark.

"So you're charming again? Princesses can get whatever they want with that quality." The King's smugness, Anna believes to be a guise. Her last threat had him retreating. It's her move now to push forward.

Her feet have been waiting for this dance as she fixes her hold on the long staff. Her boots aren't for combat, they slide a little too far as their poor grip has little it can do over carpet. Still her legs spread apart, her knees bend ready.

"I've come for something I want, but have a different idea on how to get it." At her last word the Princess of Arendelle pounces forward, adding no flare to the advance as she drives the thorn of the axe right up to the King's throat. He doesn't even flinch.

"I ask of you little, yet you storm in here with no discretion." The King responds to her threat with only slight bother. Anna's already spent a good amount of her limited energy. She wanted his hands up by now.

"I've nothing to hide. Let the guards know I aim to kill you." Anna closes her knuckles around the belly of the staff a little tighter, she adds pressure on her father's skin. She drove the end right under his Adam's apple. His words rub against the point.

"Such talk," he's still unphased. But there is a subject Anna knows has always rocked him.

"Tell me father, is it always so cold in here?"

"What do you want from this Anna?" The negotiation begins. The King has nowhere to back up, he is against his desk and his death.

"I want you to hand her to me. In exchange for your life." The King tries to drop his head back. Anna's threat is as close to him as a clean shave.

"What makes you so sure there is something for me to give?" With his neck pulled back, his eyes have to avert his child. He looks like a guilty dog unable to face the master it's wronged.

"The Godsdammed cold!"

"I never thought it would come to this. That you so willingly put yourself in front of harm I spent a decade trying to protect you from. That you look at me like such an ingrate after all that has been sacrificed for you."

"But I wasn't protected. I was confused. I blamed myself and I punished myself. If I had known the truth I might have been a Princess worth protecting. You never should have kept Her from me. You've one chance to right that wrong. Right here, right now."

"Right next to me. Look there." Anna does not take the order. But the King reaches out, he wraps his hand around the thorn pressed against him and pushes it further in as if promising she still has the upper hand.

"Go on look! It's a list of names. Names I have kept close to me for over ten years. Those are the names of people taken by the cold, some as little as three days ago. This is why the Change of Seasons no longer has a name. Their names are more important than its"

The Princess let's one arm oblige the King. Without his support on her weapon she'd lose her hold of it for sure. It's a tattered little black leather bound notebook. When Anna uses her thumb to flip it open it's pages are filled with the King's penmanship, and few neater lettering Anna knows belong to her mother. With one hand she cannot get through the pages individually. But the last page is marked by a red string, the book opens to it easily.

"You put my mother's name on this list?"

"She was the Change of Season's first victim and I hope she may be the last."

Anna closes the list. It has well in the hundreds of names. Anna takes the burden of that blame onto herself again as she tucks the notebook down her collar. Arendelle is not a big place. Anna always knew that the devastation was seismic. But as the numbers equate in her mind, Anna can call the Winter what it really is, near extinction.

"If you reach it Anna, I pray that you make the difficult choice. We cannot continue to live in fear of the cold. Arendelle cannot prosper this way. No matter how far ahead we get with harvest, no matter how close we get to paying off our debts, the looming change will come. So long as that being lives, more will die. You want the Change of Seasons, fine but it is now your task to put the names down. I hope hers is the only one you need to pen."

"You want me to kill the Change of Seasons?" Anna's muscles are relieved as the Princess lowers her weapon. She presses the hilt of the staff down into the floor. That weight is off her as the King adds another.

"I never wanted things to happen this way. I wanted to find means to control the seasons. I dedicated myself to that. But the storms hit no matter what your mother and I tried. We just wanted to keep you safe, to keep our bloodline safe. We wanted Arendelle to survive. The Change of Seasons chose to lock itself away. It too wanted what we wanted." The voice never told Anna this. In all the things it said, it never mentioned that She could be the _someone_ that had Her erased.

"We didn't choose this." The King breaths the air more freely with his throat free. He's suddenly just a father as tears stream down his face.

"I have never been able to reach it with my weapon and your mother never did reach it with her love. You have both now Anna. I need you to do what I was never capable of.

For Arendelle."

Anna waivers. She said it in the attic, a different tactic was needed. The man that has the most knowledge feels he knows what needs to be done. There is already a grave dedicated to Her but it is _empty?_ as if the King once had the same opportunity Anna has now, and failed. His failure means his hands, too, took the lives of those listed.

"Will you take me to Her?"

"I can take you to the door. It has not been crossed for years. It is impenetrable now. I'm not sure how it keeps itself alive." The King wipes the sorrow on his face as he takes the first step towards Her. He stops next to this daughter.

"Remember that when you go to strike it. It doesn't eat anymore. It's not human. It's not what it may seem. Your mother was never able to unveil that deceit, she still saw it like a child. But that monster hides under a beautiful shell. It wears it as a mask that asks for your pity. I've fallen prey to that look, even knowing how easy it is for the Change of Seasons to kill. If it lets you in, you cannot see Her in its eyes. You cannot let it live any longer."

"I understand."

The King's strides are mirrored as Anna walks his side. He isn't leading her, her skin has pimpled. it points to the direction of the cold. It is nothing like the attic once was. It's more like an annoying draft from a window that has lost its seal. But it has a signature to it, and name of it's own, it's the voice. It's not strong, the voice is not loud. It's dim enough that Anna knows it doesn't have the power to touch, or to welcome her.

The Princess doesn't expect a welcome, not when her mind is playing tricks on her. It's spouting out names as if her heart can read within the book tucked next to it. It's looking through the leather and straight into the ink. It's black lettering, but also red like dried blood.

There's a door. It's a service door. If it's anything like the one in Anna's rooms. It's a winding staircase down to the laundry, or maybe from where they are standing now, this would go straight to the kitchens. Anna reaches out to touch it and recoils as she feels that distinct burn of cold.

She's here.

Anna reaches out again this time trying the knob. The metal sort of sticks to her sweating palm but the frost doesn't keep it from turning. When she pulls the door back she is met with a tall wall of solid ice.

She's in here.

"The Change of Seasons is its own captor."

"I'm here." Anna places a flat palm into the ice, she runs it over the cold. It's flat, it's smooth, but Anna can feel it shift. It cannot be seen but the ice rises up and meets her, she can feel it sink into her the lines of her palm, running along her head line, her life line, and her heart line.

"I'm here," Anna says back to the caress.

It retracts.

"Just let me in."

It doesn't respond. Anna can feel the King fidgeting behind her. She wonders if he has the voice scared or if it read something in her palm that gave it away. Maybe it saw the many times Anna has considered killing the voice.

The Princess has not gone this far just to have another barrier between herself and the voice. She needs to see it, whatever it may be, at least once. Walking away is not an option, Anna cannot live without remembering any longer.

The ice jumps back at her, shards scattered, spitting at her direction, but her halberd axe makes a dent with the first blow. The ice blows back sharper on her second strike, and then the third. "Let me in!" She calls between each swing of her weapon.

She goes for it madly, hitting the same mark each time. Anna feels the barricade. The metal of her axe sends along a message as it vibrates after each hit. The ice is starting to get brittle, as if the voice is making it easier for Anna to access it.

The Princess still screams with each motion, her broken body fighting her as valiantly as the cold. The harder she hits, the bigger the opening she makes. Even as the chill of the voice starts blowing in her face, she works up a sweat. It pours down her brow and mixes with light streams of blood where the ice has shot back at her.

Anna stops to take a breath. She's carved out hole big enough to start to climb through. It's shallow, and reveals that the depth of this ice goes further than a door. It might be endless cold. The Princess starts taking the peak of her axe as if it was a pick. She's able to drive it in deeper. Her movements are chaotic with no real tact, but the ice is crumbling easier now. She has enough space to climb in.

Why wasn't she born an ice harvester instead of a Princess?

Her father says nothing as she goes forward. She tucks the staff of her weapon under her body. Rolling her shoulders inward to make herself smaller is the most painful of her attempts to get through. The axe head is close to her face, the ice enshrouds her. She had no range of motion but to poke at the barrier in front of her in order to keep trying to tunnel herself forward.

Larger blocks of ice come loose. Anna barely has the space to crawl past them. They are sharp and catch on her clothes and skin. Still she pushes further. She's made it past the doorway and the landing there. The corridor is like she pictured except the staircase winds up. Her grit surpasses her exhaustion but barely. The princess doesn't stop but slows.

She takes more purposeful breaths as she starts hitting the ice with a closed fist. She's relieved by how easily it crumbles. She makes more headway calm than she did while frenzied. It's almost as if the voice can sense her better.

"I'm here," she tells it. It's never meant more.

Maybe she should not have spoken. The caress returns. It starts at her back, ginger as always. It's welcoming. The voice has always been welcoming. But the ice does start closing in on her. Her retreat thunders shut, the ice builds up again behind her, in the time it takes Anna to take another shallow breath. It peeks something she hasn't felt for the voice in a long time. Fear. The ice starts to bear down on her bones, making them pop audibly.

Anna knows what this is. It's the battle the voice always has with itself. The one it constantly fails to overcome. It needs to both fight the cold and embrace it. Anna takes that lesson as she chooses to strike what wants to crush the intruder and pulls herself up with the ice that loves the Princess of Arendelle.

She keeps crawling, she keeps slashing. Anna can feel the voice screaming as if she's cracking. Each slice pains it. The Princess cannot hear it, but she feels Her cry. Anna's voice mixes into the wailing. Her sounds are guttural, they are mad, they are furious. They drive her forward, deeper into the tunnel, closer to the prison.

The halberd almost falls through to the other side as she finally breaks the last of the wall. The ice pressing into her gives up, the pressure fades. She crawls through and lands on both her feet. Finally through, the first thing she sees is a gramophone. It shines gold, the only thing not coated with ice. The room is small and windowless. The walls are wrapped with stone and are covered with snow banks, and fractals of ice. It's a stockade, but it also looks like a torture chamber. Anna feels Her cold, with it present, this dungeon feels like home.

"El?" Anna dares ask. She doesn't see Her until her eyes find a corner. There, barely noticeable within signs of winter, a body made of ice and snow is curled into itself facing the wall. It's shaking, not from the cold, it's sobbing. Anna takes slow even steps towards the naked figure.

It is crying but it isn't making that same noise Anna felt as she tunneled into this prison. it's shoulders rattle in fear and in grief. The voice has shoulders, Anna finds herself thinking. It has a spine that travels up to a neck, where a head is held in its hands, still hiding away. Anna knows she has the means; she can take that head off it's shoulders. Arendelle will never have to fear the cold again.

"Don't," the voice says. "Don't you hesitate."

Maybe, maybe Anna was capable of that first swing. But she would never be able to take a second. The weapon she has now cannot make one fine finishing blow. Useless, Anna let's it fall from her fingers. She drops the axe and then follows it to her knees. The axe rings like an alarm as the steel clatters on the cold floor between Anna and the voice. It rings for nothing, there is nothing to be afraid of.

The voice yelps in surprise. It sounds so real without the distance cloaking it. The Princess reaches to touch the icy body and the cold feels human. She presses her hand, hot from her struggle, into the snow. It's so cold it burns. Anna can't hold herself there for long. The pain forces her reflexes to pull back. The Princess leaves a hand print of exposed skin. Pale but flesh. Even though she knows there will be pain, she reaches out again. A swipe of her hands across the ice leaves behind a trail of skin, as if she was wiping away condensation.

"You're alive. Under the cold you're alive. You really are in here."


	8. Raw

Flurries sway from side to side rocking like a swing a child has jumped from not a moment ago. They do not capture the Princess of Arendelle's attention. Their beauty is lost on her. Each individual snowflake tells its own story. If Anna were to bother to catch one in her hands, she might see they hold memories. They might not have a single tone of colour to them but there is clearly a redhead in these stories, bouncing around another child.

When each flake falls to the ground, building up the pool of cold, it becomes nearly impossible to read. The memory lost, not taken but shed. The more snow falls the less there is that links Anna to the frail block of ice huddled in the corner. The more it snows the less she will ever find out about the life she once shared with the former Heir to the Throne. It is that person who is letting those memories go.

It looks like a display of affection, magic fluttering, announcing a reunion. But it is an act of fear.

Anna's knees dig deeper into the pile of truths as she pulls herself further, or closer to the Change of Seasons. Anna is not sure what to do with her own frozen fingers, if she should put them back onto the shaking body in front of her or drop them to her sides.

She's shocked at what she sees, bones, ribs that look like they are inhaling the figure's skin. Anna has uncovered a glimpse of a decrepit body. She is still looking at the almost clear skin and the veins pumping blue blood towards a heart. It does not feel like the deceit her father warned her about. Hearts are animal, as are humans. The voice is not mystical. It is real. Tangible for the first time in all of Anna's memories.

Anna tries something new. She passes her hand not on the cold that seems to encase the Change of Seasons but on the small patch of flesh she's uncovered. It causes the body to flinch forward. It does not have much space to evade, its only choice is to press itself further into the wall. It moves on a snap reflex, spinning, knowing full well that its back will fit better into the corner than its front.

The Princess is now face to face with the Change of Seasons.

The jawline Anna sees belongs to the late Queen, even made of chiseled ice, it is unmistakable. The trepidation the Change of Season wears on its brow is the one Anna saw on her dying mother.

The eyes that furrow fear at her aren't glazed by cold. They are not crystallized like the woman the voice showed Anna days ago. They are another sign, just like the tremble in its thin lips. It is confirmed by the shake of its eyes. All together this ice mask is a strange distortion of the Princess of Arendelle. The voice is her sister.

Anna puts her hands out, open and flat, next to her own head. She tells the voice she is not a treat. The snow is still lulled slowly as it falls, but the air gets thinner as more white comes in between them.

The Change of Seasons reacts again. She puts her palm up. Failing to mimic Anna's relaxed fingers; they curl at the top knuckle. Her hand is stretched out in front of her middle. Bright vibrant blue ice threatens Anna. The Princess easily assumes the damage those thin fingers can cause. The Princess is so close to the voice she could easily lean forward and let her forehead fall into a hold. She can feel the cold being expelled by those fingertips.

The Princess slowly starts to cross her own hands in front of her face. The voice accepts her slow movements as Anna defensively covers herself. She looks at the voice through her own fingers. Her eyes dare to roam the body before her. It's breathing hard, on an inhale its breasts push forward, appearing from behind the curled up knees, only to fall again.

The Change of Seasons looks full, looks healthy and curved. The skin Anna saw on its back pointed to something frail. It seems the snow and ice fill in the blanks, showing off a full fledged woman, nearly two decades in age. It may be the manipulation the King spoke of but the Change of Seasons is gorgeous. Even in the feral like position it uses to threaten the Princess, it radiates a savage poise.

Anna lets herself look at it. She isn't afraid. The Princess is something else completely. It should have her reeling, should have her terrified but instead she's fighting a smile as she works her thoughts and mulls over how to proceed. The Change of Seasons allows Anna to make another slow movement. She pushes one hand forward, closing the short distance between her hand and the voice's offence.

Anna interlocks her fingers, drops each one her digits between the grooves in the ice. The Change of Seasons' eyes soften before it lets its fingers fold over and accepts the hold.

"Hi," Anna's voice barely carries past the light storming snow around them. The voice doesn't speak, it nods its hello. The small space between their palms feels warm. Anna cannot see it, but she knows there is now only skin between them there.

"I want to hold you." The Princess asserts. She gives her hold on the cold a slight tug after receiving a second nod from the Change of Seasons. It lets its body fall forward into Anna's arms. She catches the being. The ice is heavy as it falls into her chest. The cold stings even through the layers of Anna's funeral dress. It all hurts but it is the sweetest pain Anna has ever felt. She accepts more of it and she begins to run her hands over the Change of Seasons' skin.

Anna starts at its arms and back. They are the easiest parts to reach. Anywhere her palms go the ice recedes, leaving behind skin with the elasticity of human flesh but the colour of a porcelain doll. The more pressure she applies the more peach freckles start to contrast the white. Anna follows them down the voice's sides.

The Change of Seasons doesn't react much. Her eyes, half veiled, look up at Anna. They are soft and relaxed, almost dozing at Anna's touch. Anna tries not to get frenzied. Every inch almost requires several passes. It has to be direct contact to uncover more of Her. The voice complies, shifting its body to give Anna more access.

The Princess fumbles when the voice leaves her to lay itself into a bed of snow, pressing its raw back into the cold, exposing itself to Anna fully. Anna's eyes linger, not in hesitation but because it feels far too surreal. It feels like a daydream, maybe even a fantasy. She knows she should be condemning her eagerness, but she reaches out. The more friction she makes the realer the Change of Seasons becomes. The more Anna finds Her.

Anna is numb to the cold, she cannot feel it anymore as she pulls her fingers along the natural curve of the voice's ribs. The ice dissolves, doing away with the armour around this being, leaving barely anything. A concave stomach next to only hip bones. Anna fingers uncover coarse curls, they follow the drop in between the voice's thighs and encircle it there. It feels as intimate as rolling her thumbs over the Change of Seasons nipples does, like digging in behind the bend of its knees and holding her fingertips against all pulse points too.

Each stroke is loving as much as it is sexual. Taking the Change of Seasons apart like this feels like Anna's calling. It feels like a gift. There is no way that it could be anything less than an act of love. It's cold and consuming. The voice is shy as it starts to look more and more meek. Still it welcomes touch, lifting and giving access. When their eyes meet it nods encouragingly. Every stroke Anna makes is matched with her eyes. The long arduous process reaches its near end after the pads of the voice's feet reveal high arches.

Anna has to climb the length of the voice's body to reach the last task. The mask. The fog of Anna's cold breath falls into the Change of Seasons face as the Princess lowers her weight onto the small body. She catches herself with her knees but still lets their chests meet.

The voice's blue lips twitch, pulled upwards slightly. Their eyes meet again. Anna drops herself onto an elbow next to a frozen ear. She reaches over to it and pinches the cartilage between her fingers, rubbing and pulling and following the odd ridges that make up a human's sense of hearing. A tiny little hum slips out of the voice's closed lips. It managed to keep it's composer when Anna's fingers had grazed it the length of it's core, breaking only to rock it's hip forward but never to hum.

Anna inhales, wanting to bask in the minute sound. It is a sound of innocence, something Anna had once and shared freely with this being. Although Anna has the real thing in front of her now, she still really wants the Change of Season's voice too. The most eager movement she enacts is jumping to the next ear. The Change of Season does not give Anna the satisfaction. Perhaps the Princess' intentions were too obvious.

The Change of Seasons lips purse. It's almost comical to see the soft pink pop out of the deep blue solid ice of impossibly long hair and the crystallized hues on its cheeks. Anna sneers, not bothering to bite back her laughter. The glare she receives is literally glacial. Ice creeps back over its ears.

"Hey! Don't!" Anna scolds as she instantly covers the Change of Seasons ears and starts to vigorously massage them. The friction creates a warmth, her messy touch thawing at the sides of its face and revealing some platinum white locks. After exaggerating the need to rub ears, Anna works a new strategy, harnessing her focus back on the voice's now smiling mask.

Anna replaces her fervour with feathered touches. She starts right at the voice's hair line dropping down the side of its face and following the flow of its body past the chin and back up the other side. The Change of Season's eyes drop closed every time Anna circles near its temples. It inhales as the singular fingertip nears its lips. Anna indulges each new freckle with a second pass. The Change of Seasons' composer falters alas. Anna takes note of its uneven breaths.

The deep blue eyes that intently watch Anna's touch, they don't need to be thawed. They shine with the same adoration the Princess feeds the voice through her fingers. Anna tries not to be too taken by them, wanting her task to be her only focus. The voice is soon finally Her. They are both suddenly hyper aware that besides thousands of individual strands of hair, only the Change of Seasons' mouth is blue. A frozen tongue moistens the icy lips. They part in anticipation. It's now the voice that has left it's desires easy to read. Anna is playing a long con as she leaves the pads of her fingers on the Change of Seasons' face and lowers her lips to its mouth instead.

She lets them hover over the last of the ice. Eyes locked, the Change of Seasons sucks in a breath and exhales a name.

"Anna."

It's the most euphoric thing the Princess has ever heard. The call that started it all speaks clearly with the least possible amount of distance. No obstructions. Anna has done what she set out to do. She has found the voice. She basks in her success a moment too long. The Change of Seasons takes it upon itself to close the only space left between them. It takes Anna's lips with its ice.

Anna feels a frozen tongue enter her and defrost as it tangles itself inside Anna. The muscle retreats back into cold. Anna follows running her own tongue into the inside of the voice's mouth, feeding it warmth. The Princess wins a mewl. The kiss melts into softness.

"Anna," the voice sighs again. There's a pause as the wet contact comes to an end.

"You're crushing me."

The Princess reacts with wide eyes, jumping back as if after removing the Change of Seasons' ice armour she has revealed hot coals. The voice however clings to Anna, She weightlessly is jerked upwards. Anna calms down to adjust Her on her own lap.

"Sorry," Anna tries but the voice just coos and burrows into Her new position. She curls up around Anna's legs. The fabric She has in Her hands is clutched tightly. From here Anna has good access to the Change of Seasons' hair, after adjusting her ribs into a better position she starts on the locks. They flow well down the voice's back. It's glorious, but also brittle from neglect.

Looking down at Her now, a malnourished carcass pulled out of a shell, Anna realizes that it is no longer true that she does not have means to administer one final blow to the Change of Seasons. With one spark of instrict Anna could take Her life in numerous ways. Anna isn't at war with herself any more though. She knows there is a better way. A way that suits Anna just fine. The skeletal face below her is just as beautiful as the mask She can wear. The only emotion Anna can name as she looks down at the Change of Seasons is love. Love would be her only method of controlling Winter.

"Do you want to leave here?" Anna asks Her.

"Your arms? No."

But the ice around the staircase starts to soundlessly creep back into the walls. The snow begins to lift up towards the roof. Millions of snowflakes, untested memories raise up in the air, Anna's for the taking once more. They become a flurry, some running the length of Anna's cheek as they begin to dissolve upwards. Leaving no ice, no snowflakes, no signs of a shared past except for a gramophone, and a way back down to the castle.

Anna gulps. The way down is also the way up.

"El?" The body in her arms is far too relaxed. Anna gives the Change of Seasons shake.

"We have to go," Anna warns. But the small frail body is done. Although She did so peacefully, clearing the path was a great exertion. The body on top of Anna has fallen useless and unconscious. Anna shivers, whether from the cold or her fear it barely matters. She pulls the voice up closer to her and nearly effortlessly adjusts the Change of Season over her shoulder. The voice's cheek falling on Anna's low back. She's light and thin but long and barely alive draped over her. The Princess reaches out and takes hold of her discarded halberd and with one loud and unlike lady-like grunt pushes herself up to standing.

She lets out a frustrated wail as the pain in her side announces itself again, its vengeance cruel. The halberd itself feels like it weighs more than the Change of Seasons does as Anna tries to take even steps down the winding staircase. She takes purposeful breaths readying herself for whatever she might find once she is in the King's Chambers again.

The King is pacing with hands pulling at his hair. Maybe Anna has been gone an eternity because he looks aged. Her father hears the approach. He halts, his neck snapping in attention. He stands firmly at the foot of the stairs with his hand over his mouth.

"Oh thank the Gods! You've done it." He looks like he might collapse. As if he doesn't know how to stand without this colossal weight on his shoulders. The lightness is too airy. He has a small shine of pride in the swell of his tears. He doesn't drop them. Anna's father dares smile at the idea that the Change of Season hangs over his child's shoulder like a prized buck hunted down.

"I know that wasn't easy but Arendelle will thank you for it. You are the Princess they deserve." The King finds his footing as he offers praise. Anna remembers his face, years ago, the moment he likely realized he protected the wrong daughter and had Anna sent away. For years Anna thought she would kill to see that look in his eyes replaced with this one. She couldn't have been more wrong.

"I didn't. Couldn't. No, I love Her. I wouldn't." Anna adjusts her grip on her weapon. She uses her peripheral to scan the small landing. If only she had made it out of the stairway and through the door. There is no exit but through the King. Her only retreat is back into a prison.

The Princess fears he might hurt the voice due to her admission. She takes up her arm, again placing the spear head under the King of Arendelle's chin. She's shaky, holding the weapon up with one arm is not something she ever trained for. It's heavier than the starved woman on her shoulder but she musters the courage to keep her dominant hand steady.

"Don't you love me?" The King's beg is thick.

"Barely… not enough… not more than Her."

The pride melts away as if it was its own mask Anna has cleared right off.

"What are you going to do now then Anna?" Her heels are pressed into the back of a step. Her upper hand is the determination that puffs up her chest. "You cannot leave here with it. I cannot allow the Change of Seasons to ravish another land. It is Arendelle's problem."

"She's just a girl." Anna defends. But her argument is not the same as the one her heartbroken mother must have cried. There is more to Anna's.

"It's always been me. I'm Arendelle's problem. I'm Her problem. Each storm has been in my name. Don't you get it? I am the Winter when we are apart." The King sucks at the bottom of his lip as he listens to his daughter's words.

"But I'm her solution too. She loves me. It's her blessing and her curse to love me. I know now, if I am at her side, together we can wield her power." Anna cannot help but sound desperate as she pleads her case. She knows what she is prepared to do, if the adrenaline hits her just right she believes herself capable of tearing this man before her down. Anna hopes that the Gods' will is that a father and his two children are meant to live.

"No one should have that power. Controlled or not, it must be snuffed out. No good can come of it!" Anna has her arm snaked over the Change of Seasons, locked in place by the back of Her knees. The Princess still has her hand on a piece of Her skin. She grips harder because the Change of Seasons Herself has only ever made Anna feel good. The bad she suffered knowing the voice existed came from forces Anna never knew about.

"I have been touched by her magic daddy. She should have never been made afraid of it." It's an admission of their shared intimacy. Even if the King is incapable of reading between those lines, Anna speaks it proudly.

"Anna you still don't know what you are talking about. It almost killed you. Something had to be done." Anna cares little for the details. They all add up to one mistake Anna plans to give zero forgiveness for.

"My life is not worth more than all the others that were lost."

"It was the choice the Change of Seasons itself made." Anna still doesn't know Her face well enough to picture the eight year old child making a decision that overrode the King and Queen of an entire nation. What she can see is her own self, prepubescent, overwhelmed with guilt and desperate to take on any punishment to absolve her actions. She tries not to let the thought weaken her, not now. She lets it feed her fire instead.

"She was a child! You allowed that. The stupid fear in your eyes must have terrified her!"

"Tell me, did it not ask to die? Did you not give it the release it too wants?" Anna realizes that the King has taken his sword to the Change of Seasons' prison before. The voice was trained to be in that defeated position, with Her neck exposed. It's the King's only failure Anna is willing to forgive.

"It wasn't hard to convince Her She can have more than death, She can me instead. Why you didn't do the same when She was a child is beyond me." Luckily her father has more inadequacies to debate.

"You weren't there Anna. You got to live in the warmth of your bed while your mother pounded on a door made of pure ice everyday, begging it to come out or to eat or to say something. Pleading at it to Change the Season." The King bares his anger. His face flushes red. He still cares little of the blade in his neck.

"I lost my wife to that thing. It took both my Queens. It locked up my child. And by the look in your eye and the weapon you push into me now, it took you too." Anna refuses that the onus be put on Her. She's slipping off Anna's shoulder. The Princess has to throw up her arm to readjust. Her broken ribs almost fail her as she lifts the dead weight up higher. Anna doesn't have much in her left still she presses on, knowing there is no other option.

"You took Her name. You took Her spot in the world, Her place in this family and left Her with only cold to give. You told Her the one thing she had was dangerous. It took over a decade but She found a way to make the cold feel good. She doesn't deserve to die." Anna takes a full step forward, allowing the tip of her blame to push into the King of Arendelle. He steps back. Anna gets closer to the threshold.

"I'm taking her on. The Change of Seasons is under my charge now. If anyone tries to take Her from me they will be torn down." The King retreats, stepping back this time before Anna has a chance to force him. She follows.

"As long as it lives Arendelle is not safe. You won't be safe."

"I think you're wrong. Even if you aren't, I don't care." Anna twists the belly of the axe. It spins the thorn at the King's neck. Pushing, he continues to crawl back towards the wall. Anna sees the sweat in his brow. It's hot in his chambers.

"You know I can't let you take it. This is our only chance. Lay it down, I will finish the job and you walk out of here future Queen of Arendelle. The Ruler of Summer. Try to take it and I will have you both killed." He knows the heat is his advantage. The Change of Seasons really is nothing in the heat. Anna could easily drop Her. She could accept, but its shallow breaths still push into Anna's bones. She trusts the cold is one word away.

"Are you so unwilling to give your daughters a chance, that you rather have them both be brought down?"

"Anna! It's not about that. I refuse to let this opportunity go to waste. Its defenses are lowered. You let it ice up again and we will lose this chance." This time Anna stops her warnings. When she pushes she draws blood.

"Father. I rather have every single soul in this castle, man, woman, or child, die in the hands of winter than give Her to you. That absolutely is a threat."

"You may be wielding that weapon but you do not have an upper hand here. I can best you Anna." The Princess pushes in deeper. To prove his point the King allows his skin to be pierced deeper.

"You wouldn't reason with me if you had no doubts. You understand if you underestimate me and you will die. Let us walk out of this castle. I can guarantee the seasons will be back on the calendar." Anna's father's top lips curls upwards, he shows his teeth.

"Your naivety is laughable. My death leads to yours, to its. You aren't in the position to negotiate." Anna knows the King is right. There is no way he did not give his guards even some sort of alert. Every moment Anna delays action she grows weaker.

"Fine, keep your life. Let us retreat to my suite. With time I can prove to you that the Change of Seasons is not a threat." The pause between them isn't silent. Each of their breaths give away their own distress, behind then there is a low rumble coming from outside the King's suites.

"You can go," Anna's father relent. "Know you won't leave there alive. Consider it your prison sentence and at the first sign of winter, your death sentence." The King steps aside, allowing the tip of the thorn to drag against his skin. The slice is superficial but it is more than enough for Anna to be tried for treason, killed for attempting to murder the King of Arendelle.

Anna does not turn her back to the King. She takes steps backwards towards the door, the heavy axe held out straight. She's so focused on her father that she allows the voice's head to knock against the door. The thud causes the guards to open her retreat. The Princess wastes a second to wince before she sidesteps through the doorway with her axe in ready position.

Anna hears the disturbance right away. There are chants and cries coming from the corridor from which she last entered. Before she came for the Change of Seasons the group was left in celebration. What Anna hears now is malcontent.

There is only one guard. He's the biggest of the two loyal men who have spent their life on opposite ends of the door to the King's chambers. He is ready for action, showing no apprehension to be toe to toe with someone he has sworn to protect. The King trumps all.

"Some unrest my King!" He calls over his shoulder as he puts his body in the middle of the threshold Anna has just escaped from. "Rumors that the Princess is in distress have spread. The men are holding back a mob at the top stairs."

Anna tries to understand the report. She knows that the Stranger has some sort of hand in this. She doesn't take this guard on, aware he is bound to the King's side. She ignores the weight bearing down on her shoulder as she withdraws towards the commotion. Whatever control the King's men had regained reignites at the sight of the Princess.

A unified distressed roar comes from her subjects as they once again test the blades pointed at them. The group's voice chants the Princess' name. Anna sees the Ice Harvester immediately. He is being held off by the guards in the middle of the melee. Meeting eyes with the Princess invigorates him.

"Anna!" His voice cuts through everyone's thunder. A closed fist to the neck of a guard gives him space to draw closer to his Princess. A small breech is made at the top of the stairs. More bodies make it past guards. The landing is quickly over crowded. To escape Anna needs the mob to move the opposite direction.

The Stranger reaches her side. He immediately bows next to her, offering his shoulder. The Change of Seasons changes hands as the Ice Harvester tosses the lifeless sack over him, mimicking Anna's hold on Her. The crowd is not hyper focused on Anna anymore. Their purpose suddenly only to riot as if they are predators made hungry by the long winter. They are awake now and suddenly summer is a threat. The King's men aren't knights anymore but easy prey.

The people are rabid. Some pull and yank at Anna, begging her to bless them, to answer them, and to notice them. Their crazy causes bystanders to turn on each other. Some Knights call to protect the Princess while others demand she is arrested. There is suddenly an explosion of madness that feels like a fever sleep. Anna turns the head of her weapon downwards using the shaft she strikes all, not trusting anyone to be anything other than foe.

The Ice Harvester keeps the voice held high as Anna wields the long rod of her weapon, pushing everyone back. She takes steps backwards in attempts to keep the distance growing.

"Where are you taking us?" The Stranger calls out.

"Prison," Anna answers sourly. Even without the fray it was inevitable she and the voice be locked up. As Anna pushes the Stranger back past the hall to the King's Chambers, she regrets that he will end up behind the bars. The best she can do is offer him a chance to evade.

"Run," The Princess admits defeat. She's barely spent any time in the royal corridors in the last few years but she's counted the steps since passing the sharp turn she used to make to find her mother. She's only a few long strides away from what used to be her bedroom.

She runs into the door as she moves full force. The knob clicks and she's suddenly in her old chambers. The Ice Harvester stands wide eyed at the doorway.

"Drop Her and go. There's nothing on this side of the door but the guillotine." Anna gasps as she yanks at the numb body on the Ice Harvestor's shoulder. He lets the Change of Seasons roll off him. Anna tries to catch the voice but barely manages to soften Her fall.

The Princess hears the door slam shut. The Stranger has chosen to stay on Anna's side of it. She watches him dumbly as he rushes over to a wardrobe and throws it off the wall. He shoves it towards the door and continues scouring the room, pulling whatever piece of furniture he finds against his built up barricade.

Anna leaves her axe and hoists up the voice, carrying Her to her old bed. She lays Her down gently before running through the bathhouse and into the dressing room. There she rushes to follow he stranger's lead, blocking them all in.

The Ice Harvester is locking the doors to the balcony when she reenters.

"What was that?" Anna asks him. She's out of breath. She didn't know that out of all things speaking would be what pains her side most. It all catches up to her. It isn't just her ribs. There isn't a single part of her that does not feel weak.

"You were taking too long. I was worried over what the King was capable of. It didn't take more than a word or two to get the crowd inflamed. I thought the distraction would thin out the guards against you." His determination does not falter. His knuckles are white, even behind a locked door he is ready for whatever is to come.

"I didn't mean that you idiot. Why are you here? You should have run!"

"I don't run from the girl with a death wish." Her keeper declares. Anna wants to lunge forward and beat her fists into his chest but she doesn't have the strength for it.

"The death wish is yours then!"

"So be it. There is no way I'm turning my back on you. Especially when you finally have what you want."

"I do." Anna calms. She hears what he really means. With her main objective over, he hopes she still might want him. He would be so easy to love, Anna thinks as she watches him with his back straight and his fists clenched. His chest is rising and falling at an alarming rate. There's no way his lungs are getting the oxygen they need. His passion is his weakness.

Anna drops her head. Not having to hold it up anymore shows her just how exhausted she really is. Night has fallen. She can see the full sky from the picturesque windows of her old suite. It's a view she hasn't seen in years but knows by memory. The Princess drags her feet and slowly lowers herself to sit next to the Change of Seasons.

"Thank you." She says to the Stranger. When she goes to look at him his gaze isn't on her. He's looking at the hollow naked body next to her. Anna brings her attention back to the voice. Maybe they would have gotten further, even away if She had been able to move on Her feet but Anna is relieved the voice had not experienced the frenzy nor the dead look in their father's eye as he condemned them both.

Maybe they would have been more likely to survive, still the crazed but innocent mob might have not been, if the Change of Seasons had been forced to use Her power. Anna places her hand on the voice's hip. She runs her palm in a circle testing the temperature. She's tepid, like the last sips of a forgotten cup of tea. It might as well be a fever compared to the cold radiating from Her before.

"Maybe you should stay in the dressing room." Anna suggests.

"I wasn't staring like that," The Stranger puts his hands up defensively. His face suddenly red. Anna doesn't have to be told to know it's true. The Change of Seasons raw body has nothing someone else would alluring to it. The only thing it stirs is sympathy.

"I know. I just don't know when She'll wake. And She doesn't like you much."

"Me?"

"She could see us." Anna's words don't resonate with the Stranger. She rolls her eyes at him. "She doesn't like that we have sex."

"Oh!" The shade of red gets impossibly brighter. The Stranger shifts in his boots still unsure if he should leave. "Why would that matter?"

Anna doesn't miss a beat. Her answer is not something she carries any shame about. She has few truths that belong to her, and none that matter more than this.

"Because Her and I have sex." The Princess watches the Ice Harvester swallow.

"But you know now that she's your-"

"My everything!" Anna defends far too briskly. She tries softening "She's my everything."

Although Anna did wish the Stranger had taken his chance with the mob and the King's men, she is still relieved he's here with her. She's less afraid with him on this side of the door. Anna might be okay with death, but protecting the Change of Seasons feels so much easier knowing that she, herself, is being protected. Nonetheless, the Princess of Arendelle's words dig a blade into her Stranger's chest all over again.

"I see."

"The guards won't test the doors unless there is a change in the cold. If there are any signs of Winter we're done. I need you to give me space with the Change of Seasons. On our lives, we cannot let Her get upset." Anna reaches out the Ice Harvester but he pulls back before she can touch him, not giving her the satisfaction of comforting him.

"I'm sorr-"

"Don't." He cuts off hot and does as he was told. He exits through the bathhouse, slamming the door. Anna could have used his help with her corset. She drops on her back. The guilt she feels simmers almost immediately as she turns her head and meets the voice's calm face.

Everything else ceases to exist, ceases to matter. It feels like the entire room and the unrest on the other side of it, all floats up and away like the snow that covered the voice's stockade had. The only things that are real to Anna are the parts of the bed her body is in contact with and her tired sister.

Anna just stares at Her. They are both on their sides, facing one another. Anna has pulled at the Change of Seasons and put her in a position that makes her sickly body look less exposed and less small. The Princess reflects Her with her own body, both her hands tucked under her own cheek.

Exhaustion calls on Anna but it doesn't take her to rest. Even with great effort the Princess cannot keep her eyes shut. She needs sleep but all she wants is to look at the voice.

She notices ice starting to return at the Change of Seasons' ears. Without watching to see how it expands, Anna immediately gets her skin on the cold. She pushes it back. All the watching turns into high alert, catching the ice as it begins to reappear.

Anna spends what feels like hours running her hands wherever it seems to creep back. Yet not far into it, she notices that the ice only returns in places the Change of Season most eagerly responded to Anna before. The Princess relaxes, she halts her rushed strokes and caresses the cold. It feels like she is returning every icy touch the voice has ever given her. Anna indulges, stroking both cold and skin. She finally lets her eyes close to focus on one singular sense.

There's so much darkness behind her eyes that it all feels like a dream. The Princess doesn't need to see to know it is snowing again. She can feel individual snowflakes land sporadically on her skin. They sit on her much like her own freckles do, each individual and apart from one another. The temperature has lowered to sit just right. The stories on them don't melt away.

Anna inhales. The icy air is the voice's touch reaching inside her again. The Change of Seasons is awake. Anna drifts away, unaware of the parts of her past lying between her and her sister, and certainly not caring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi my baby elephants! Hope you guys enjoy this installment! I don't know why I think these chapters will get easier to write as I go on xD But this one was a big one, hope it doesn't disappoint.
> 
> The response to the last chapter was really motivating. It carried me through for sure! Really exciting to see some of you so into it! Thanks for the reviews guys. It's sooo appreciated.


	9. Reset

**Reset**

There is something in her teeth halting the scream that needs to be released. The urge is brought upon by pain, unlike anything she has ever felt before. It woke her from a sleep that was likely her calmest. It has her thrashing at the contrast but her body is unable to move, also restricted by something, something cold. The only things that can recoil are her insides. Her heart takes the lead as it sounds an alarm. The only outward reaction she has is the tears that squeeze out of her closed eyes.

The pain is in her chest. Her internal voice is wailing but it doesn't drown a succession of pops. Each one hits a new level of hurt. It's so cold inside her and not in the smoothing way she has come to love. This feels like it is trying to rearrange her bones. The grinding, like the gears of a clock, stops but the chill stays embedded.

"There," comes a triumphant coo. Anna feels a relax around her. Whatever was in her throat shrinks and turns into ice-cold water. Anna chokes on it in surprise. Her body is allowed to cough and tense as it strives for composure. The convulsions pain her chest, but it's more of a dull ache now. She's free to move, with the exception that she is still being held down at the pelvis.

The Princess opens her eyes. The Change of Seasons is perched on top of her. She is smiling. Her skin is soft and fresh. The only trace of ice now is on her cheeks; gilded snowflakes frost her. Anna finishes her cough, finally swallowing the snow that had her shut up and made her unable to grit her teeth while trying to endure the pain. She might have bitten her tongue clean off if she'd been able to brace herself.

"How's that feel?" the voice asks with a cocked head and expectant eyebrows. Anna has just felt something akin to what it might be like to be killed but she nods her head affirmatively, still very unaware of what's just happened.

"The realignment of your ribs will allow them to heal properly. The ice inside you will hold them in place. You'll be sore and cold until you aren't anymore."

"How'd you know to do that?" Anna asks as she looks down at herself. She's flat on her back and apparently slept through having her funeral grab removed. The Change of Seasons did not even leave Anna's slip on. She's completely naked save for her underwear. The Princess refuses to look up because, well, so is the voice.

Anna is currently feeling a new extreme on the very far opposite end of the spectrum of pain. She thought she'd gotten some control of her breath, but her pulse kicks back in. The voice doesn't seem to notice.

"I broke my fist once. Each finger, each bone. I passed the time trying to set it right," the voice says so without realizing the implication of Her statement. All Anna hears is pain, but She is perched in Her own satisfaction. She opens Her right hand out in between them and spreads Her fingers like five points on a star. They are long and slender, a true indication that the Change of Seasons is not meant to be so small. No, with hands like those She would have been many things, maybe a pianist or an archer. Instead, She sits weightlessly on Anna recounting that She passed the time breaking Herself.

Rebuilding Herself, too, Anna adds to her thoughts. Because to see Her just as frail is a mistake. There is so much power sitting behind those fingers. Anna sees flashes of an ominous blue as the Change of Seasons wiggles Her hand, showing off the range of motion.

"Thank you," Anna says with a cough. She tries to chalk it up to her previous choke but as she lays she cannot recall ever feeling any pain.

Her body is buzzing as the Princess takes in the vision on top of her. Anna looks past the starving and sees a gleam. It's not just the pulses of blue magic that spread, coming and going like a deep breath, frosted starbursts that swell under the Change of Seasons skin. The beauty there is more human. Anna looks past the flesh illuminating like the first day of snowfall, when the flakes are fat and plentiful enough to build up over the ground, and sees a girl. In the far recesses of Anna's memories, before winter was something Arendellians feared, the first snowfall was Anna's most favourite thing.

The feeling of winter is sitting atop the Princess now, personified and radiant. Anna feels her heart pang into her healing rib cage and for the first time in Anna's recollection, it doesn't hurt to love. Nothing else matters, not even the unfairness of being ripped apart from this entity. Anna is smiling like a fool. Outside the barrier of cold, the voice enshrouded her in, is a looming death sentence and Anna cannot bring herself to care.

Her staring may have escalated too intensely because the Change of Seasons adds a pink hue to Her deathly white skin. She looks away. Anna wants to touch Her but the ceasing eye contact diminishes her confidence. The way Anna is pinned leaves her few options, it's either stroke or lay still. Anna does the latter as silence settles between them.

It does not seem to bother the Change of Seasons, whose eyes chose to take in the bedroom. Anna watches them bounce around a bit before she does the same. She has not been in her quarters in years. The King had ordered that Anna's space be returned to her as he desperately tried to rebuild her image. It is still in transition, things that never belonged to Anna scattered here and there.

There are only slight differences in the room but they are enough to make it feel like a new space entirely. The only constant is her giant four-post bed and the painted pink embellishments on the walls but even those seem colour faded and scratched up.

The furniture has all been replaced, likely sold off and downgraded to much cheaper fixtures. Anna eyes them all piled up by the door, a poorly assembled barricade. The quality of the craftsmanship sucks. What seemed like a sufficient barrier in her exhaustion looks feeble now. Useless.

The King has not tried the doors. So far he is true to his word. They are not in any immediate danger, only captives. That makes Anna want to ball her fists up and kick the heels of her feet into the bed. She's done nothing for the Change of Seasons except upgraded Her stay in the stockade. Anna does not know where to begin to fix this.

"Are you well?" The voice curls Her back forward and leans in closer to the Princess. When Anna snaps her neck back to answer their noses graze.

"I—" Anna cannot think straight as the Change of Seasons looks down at her with a slight smile. It's nonchalant. She looks like an illustration in a children's novel, a forest nymph offering sweets and honey.

Anna has to fight the urge to lean into the fuzziness in her head when their freckles align and their eyes meet. In this state, there is no other world. Anna feels like a child begging for nectar and the nymph is obliging. Anna can feel the cold start to creep from where the Change of Seasons thighs sink into her. The voice is still far too close to Anna for her to get a look at how the magic originates, but she feels the familiar ice start to make its way along her skin.

It's moving languishingly. The Change of Seasons doesn't blink as Anna shudders against the sensation moving up and taking extra care at Anna's ribs. It creeps up the fat of Anna's breasts and inches towards her nipples. The delight is suddenly terrifying.

"I'm well!" Anna blurts out as her hesitation engulfs her anticipation. The ice cracks as if a heavy boot pressed into Anna's abdomen. It falls off at Anna's sides like shards. The Change of Seasons lifts Herself up and in a bound is on the edge of the bed.

Anna is light headed and dizzy as she shoots up too quickly. "I'm sorry," she pleads but the voice sinks down, running Her back against the edge of the bed and sliding down on the floor. It does not go unnoticed by Anna that Her neck started to ice up before She curled up into Herself.

A string of curses begs Anna to be let out and of course, only now she has enough composure to control herself.

"Can I come closer?" The only part of the Change of Seasons Anna can see is Her matted wild white hair and it shakes in a way that is neither affirmative nor denying the Princess. Anna stays put. She drops her head into her hands hoping that the dizziness might fade away.

She speaks into her palms. "I have always wanted to see You and feel You in this way. But it's so overwhelming now," the Princess admits. The Change of Seasons says nothing but not seeing Her now proves helpful. With her eyes covered it's almost like the darkness of the attic. Anna tries to lean into the comfort familiarity holds. She moves audibly along the mattress and sinks down mimicking the voice's position on the opposite side of the bed.

"How's that?" she asks the room.

"Okay." The recreation is not quite right, even with the shyness behind the voice, Anna can hear Her clearly. There is no distortion. The voice she knows so well, with its sweet rasp, feels so real to her at this moment. Uncloaked, Anna realizes she is talking to a Princess.

And she doesn't know what to say.

This was never a problem in the attic. In the attic, conversation was plentiful even if the voice was quiet on any given day.

"Why the attic? Or I guess how the attic? What the attic?" Anna is relieved she put some distance between her and the voice. She is beat red now. The voice chuckles but the sound stops abruptly when She considers the question.

"Some-times," She says with a slight stutter. The voice has never done so before. "I tested myself. It was the only place I could push the cold and learn what I could control. Where no one could see or get hurt."

Not only can Anna hear Her clearly, but She also speaks with a clarity that is normally distorted. The voice always seemed a bit dumbstruck or disconnected. Anytime Anna asked a question a great confusion took hold. The Change of Seasons seems sure of her answer and also hesitant to give it.

Still, She has never really denied Anna anything if it is in Her power to give. The Princess is well aware of that as the voice continues, "the more cold I poured in there the more I could feel the space, then smell the dust and hear the creaking of the wood when it wrapped at my drop in temperature. Eventually, I could see it. I'd never tried my voice there until I saw you."

"You recognized me then," Anna points out. That was right before the last soft winter Anrendelle ever saw. The Change of Seasons knew more back then. It knew Anna. When the Princess eventually returned that was barely the case. Maybe if Anna had asked the voice Her name then, Anna would know it now.

"I lost a lot along the way," She says sadly. "I only saw you like a shadow that can barely make out in the dark. When we were together I would force all my power into that space, just to sense you better. But I had never gotten to look at you, not really, until just now, while you were fast asleep." The Change of Seasons lets out a sigh. Anna has barely heard Her breaths before. It does not sound downcast but wistful. The voice is content to be in this prison Anna concludes.

"I'm sorry about your clothes." The apology both makes Anna's muscle go taut and insides mush. She'd assumed the disrobing was so that the Change of Seasons could better heal her, now She's implied She wanted to see Anna in this state. Anna has given her body. She's had it taken. But her nudity has always remained hers, that is until now. The idea of being so used but still having something to offer comforts her while it also has her reeling.

"It's nothing." Anna's nervous laughter is enough to brush off the comment. She hears the Change of Season shift Her position. The Princess doesn't look back but she guesses the voice has pulled Herself back onto the bed. Anna reaches her hands behind her, placing her palms on the duvet and lifts herself up without turning her body.

"When you weren't there, I spread out to find you." At the admission, Anna feels the bed shift. The Change of Seasons scoots closer into the middle of the bed. Anna does so right after, maintaining her body pointed away.

"I put too much into it," She continues, again reducing the distance between them. Anna follows.

"I lost control." They both almost make it to the centre.

"I broke all my promises." The final motion they make, they do so together as their backs meet. The voice has tossed her hair over her shoulder, nothing obstructs their skin. To Anna, it is cool and relaxing. She hopes it is warm and welcoming to the Change of Seasons. Her final admission has Her crying. Anna can feel the sobs roll up Her spine. She can feel the bones dig into her own meaty back.

"I, I thought about killing you." If control is the Change of Seasons' greatest shame, Anna shares hers. The entity pressed against her stops Her crying. Anna feels each vertebra react as they align and stack up straight, coming into full contact with the Princess. "I don't know for how long but I thought I might do it. I know I spent my time away thinking it, even wanting to... Like really wanting to kill you."

Anna is vibrating as if her body is falling into hypothermic shock. She speaks through gritted teeth, needing to get it out but not wanting to. "I pictured how I would touch you. How I would- Rip. You. Apart."

"You might still have to kill me," the voice speaks evenly. "You're still in danger. I could hurt you."

"I won't." The Change of Seasons takes in a deep breath and releases it. Anna takes the second one with her. They move with one another. Shoulders rising as they together try to find some control.

"I've decided. I won't do it. If I am to die I don't care. I got to have you. I got to see you. I still don't remember you but I barely care. This is enough. This feeling is all I ever wanted." After her declaration Anna lets herself look at the Change of Seasons. She is already gazing at the Princess. They both strain to look over their shoulders. The voice's face shows off the upturn of her lips.

"I'd die at peace too." The voice agrees. Her neck is well iced up, past her jawline and down her square shoulders. Anna twists her body to pull closer so that her mouth might meet the cold. She places her lips on the barrier the voice built up with Her guilt and thaws it with her kiss. Anna reveals a few birthmarks and commits them to memory. If she is in danger of death, they are something she wants to remember. She does not believe for a second that she will die under the Change of Seasons power, but by her father's hand or the swords of his men, it is terribly likely.

Anna wants to remember more than a voice. She does not want to die with shame or fear; she's lived with it enough. She doesn't want to hate that she wants to keep her kiss going. With permission, the Princess vows not to.

"Do you remember we're sisters?" she asks when the blue of the Change of Seasons' eyes land on her. The voice clenches Her teeth together. She turns to look forward. Anna sits back down, squaring off their shoulders once more.

"I'm scared you won't like my response to that," She says.

"We've always talked to each other. Say what you want." The Change of Seasons nods. She pulls in a breath of cold air. Anna waits expectantly. Her body is in a ready position as if she was at the start line of a race. All she wants is for the voice to say _go._

There is ice suddenly at Anna's ankles. It snakes up at her legs, rushing at her surprisingly. It skirts up Anna fast, spreading exponentially.

"I do."

The Princess is given her go ahead, but the ice has rigged the race. It's not a fair game as Anna's body falls into the sensation of the cold she has more than lusted for. Her back arches. Anna presses the back of her head into the middle of the Change of Seasons' shoulder blades. The Princess gives in, she puts up no fight as she gifts the voice her body, just as She gives Anna Her touch.

It is a sensation like no other, the prickling of her flesh, goosebumps adding friction to the coating on her skin. The Change of Seasons uses her power as if it were Her hands. It feels like having a hundred men worshipping the Princess. Hearing Anna's sudden onslaught of moans, makes the voice add some tact to her magic. It does not only coat the Princess but moves with an ebb. It runs up Anna's body like the crash of a wave then reseeds. When it crawls back up it rises higher, engulfing her hips, and sides, stroking her breasts and diving into the dips at her clavicle as if the tide was coming in.

Anna knows that the minute it reaches her mouth, the Change of Seasons will enter her core as well. She has her hands flat on the bed, gripping the covers. Her body has no balance. She's bucked away from the voice as she's lost control of her thrashing. The Princess is being held up by trembling fingers and the back of the voice's neck, where Anna's head digs in.

The Change of Season is under an even control. Anna is unsure how She maintains it, so different from Anna, whose head lulls to the side and rolls on Her shoulder. Anna tilts her neck and digs her face in the crook of the voice's. The ice there scatters as Anna laps the skin now accessible to her.

Through lidded eyes, the Princess watches the Change of Seasons' peripheral orchestrate her power. She keeps Her chest puffed out as if she has not swallowed her last breath. Her eyes are shut and Her bottom lip has cracked open Her mouth slightly. Anna knows what sensations to expect and she wants it so badly. Her knees fall onto the bed, opening her up. She wants to beg but she's too far gone to know how to work any part of herself other than her desire. Her words do not turn into demands but grumbling moans. They encourage the Change of Seasons just the same.

The plunge comes as the voice reaches back and places both her hands above Anna's. Anna used to believe the voice was inside her. At one point she'd laughed at her much younger self for being so incapable of rationale. But as the Change of Seasons dives between her legs, Anna realizes that this feeling is very much like taking a lung full of the cold air in the attic.

At Anna's teeth, where the Princess nibbles and kisses the corner of the voice's jawline, the ice starts to make its way down Anna's throat. It spreads out into her stomach, pulling down to meet the opposite end of the cold. There, the cold is stroking, it pushes into her deeper, it fills her up.

Within her, just like her childish notions believed Her to be, the Change of Seasons makes Herself very much a part of Anna. Truly, She always has been. There may have been a separation but the connection was constant. Every time the voice said _I'm_ _in here_ , She'd been referring to the link that tethers them, that starts from the Change of Seasons power and finds its way to the Princess.

"Anna," the voice gasps out. The Princess realizes that the trembling in her own body is matched by the Change of Seasons. To Anna, it's almost lame that all she can muster to return is her lips of a small piece of skin when there is barely anything left of Anna exposed. But the Princess long ago lost her sensitivity to touch, and She has spent a decade deprived of it.

The voice hums as Anna laces her tongue up higher behind Her ear. It piques the Princess' want to discover. She knows the voice so well finding a new way She can chime is exhilarating. She really does enjoy her ears touched, Anna muses triumphantly. The small sound of pleasure is met with a falter in Her magic, it causes a slowdown.

The break in intensity gives Anna a chance to twist at the hip. With the added leverage she can really sink her teeth into the tendons in the voice's neck. Anna takes back one of her hands to cross it over herself and lands it on the other side of the voice's head. She uses her fingers to force the voice to turn to Anna. She lets her lips follow the movement and only hesitates when they reach the voice's own.

There is no ice present here. The Change of Seasons doesn't need to be defrosted. Anna has no excuse to put her lips on Hers other than pleasure.

"Anna," the voice whispers once more. The Princess feels Her cold breath as She rattles the name out again. "Ah," She starts to say but Anna swallows the other end of her call.

Anna toys with Her mouth, sucking and pulling. Her tongue grazes the inside of the voice's lips. They have a conversation of long drawn out mewls and moans. The Princess reaches a peak. It hits her slow and heavy, spreading out of her as if it was cool fog. It pushes out the ice. When the cold runs out of her mouth, she loses contact with the voice. Her head rolls back onto Her shoulder and falls further onto the mattress.

The cold leaves Anna completely, only to meet her again when the Change of Seasons drops Her body down and lands Her head on Anna's stacked knees. Anna pushes herself forward, looking for more points of contact. She wraps herself around the voice's supine pose. She presses her forehead right below the voice's knee and tosses her arm over Her thighs. A hand comes down to Anna's face and strokes her cheek before diving into her hairline.

"Does that answer your question?" the Change of Seasons asks. Anna looks down towards Her. The entity is smiling. Anna had always been able to hear the glee in Her voice but to see it is something else entirely.

"I have no idea what we were even talking about," Anna chuckles. The Change of Seasons chastises her with a light yank of her hair.

"Ow, ow," the Princess exclaims as her abs stitch along with her laughter. She grabs at her chest.

"Oh now, your ribs hurt," the voice rolls her eyes. Anna wants to squeal as she takes in Her face. It is so expressive. It is saying things that are so very much like the back and forth they have always shared but paired with talkative blue eyes and chastising eyebrows. Anna already knew she loved the voice. But watching it nuzzle and bask in their shared contact the Princess settles with the idea that she is in love with the Change of Seasons.

She pulls herself onto her side and faces Anna better. The blue of magic is pulsating sporadically under her skin. It's a light show much like Arendellians skies are famous for. When it lights up under Anna's cheek she tilts to peck at the power. The voice giggles and twitches a bit.

"Are you ticklish?" Anna asks as she skits her lips along the responsive flesh.

"What? I don't even know what that is," She's laughing. Her body instinctually braces itself as Anna tests the spot next to Her knees once more. Anna almost gets capped in the face as the voice thrashes. Her giggle is throaty, a sound only made possible by physical contact. Anna pushes her luck and adds her fingers to the onslaught. She gets the Change of Seasons high on Her thighs.

"Yes, I am to whatever this is!" The voice concedes as She bucks against the feathered attack. She seemingly refuses to evade like any other would when trying to regain themselves. She doesn't want to be further away from Anna.

"But I want to keep you touching you," the Princess pleads. They both realize what Anna means at the same moment. Anna winces but the Change of Seasons bites her bottom lip and nods.

Anna suddenly doesn't know what to do with her desire now that she's honed in on it. Touching Her was just so easy, but it now feels monumental. Her own body is still feeling the lingering effects of the very capable and confident way the voice stroked her. Yet Princess does know how she wants to take Her. She hopes by fulfilling her fantasy it might do so for the Change of Seasons.

The glow of the voice's power is not pulsating under her skin as much anymore. The illumination bursts sparsely. Anna watches the snowflakes appear on Her skin here and there as she wills away her nerves. The Change of Seasons is giving Anna a face. It's lustful and eager but still, Her patience is not tested. No, the being that waited for Anna a lifetime lays cozily expectant.

Anna takes her hand down from its spot and runs is down the path of the voice's body, making its way to where Anna can smell her sex. It's almost blatant that Anna will find excitement there, still, she is surprised by the slick cold as she allows her fingers to dive in.

The voice sucks a breath back and lifts her knee to give the Princess better access. It's more than enough to snuff out Anna's trepidation. She only needs to curl herself forward to bring her mouth to the Change of Season's centre. She uses her fingers to flare out the skin so that her tongue can have free range of the pink.

The voice's mewls are guttural. Her meek fingers dig into the meat on Anna's legs with an impressive force as She begins to rock against Anna's tongue. The Princess takes a mouthful of wet as her tongue rims the opening feeding her. She dives into it, immediately noting a hint of warmth.

"Anna," The voice does not have to plead with her to ask for more. Anna quickly brings her hand to her mouth. She enters Her, discovering the jump in temperature. She thrusts in deep, loving the contrast between the ice she sucks on the human core. Anna is very aware of the switch that occurs within the voice as She starts to reach orgasm. The warmth clenches Anna's finger and rides it as the peak begins to crash. A moan from the voice hitches.

Her release comes a scream. A piercing and howling cold that makes Anna feel like she is the one that holds all the power. She sucks back on the wet curls once more but stays inside of the Change of Seasons. The voice's eyes unstitch as She bucks. She looks down at the Princess in disbelief.

As Anna watches Her come. She realizes that she may be at peace with death, but she wants to prolong it as far as possible. She might die complete, but at this moment she becomes gluttonous. She wants for nothing, except more. Anna knows her survival instincts aren't pretty but she knows she will do whatever it takes to get out of this roo.

Anna feels the world they have made for themselves in this bed gets taken away from them as a door crashes open. The body around her finger clenches and with a bound disconnects from the Princess.

"Anna!" A male voice yells into the bed chambers. Its alarm drops the temperature down to unbearable, even for Anna who has learned to be less than bothered by the cold.

Instantly a wind picks up. There is no snowfall, the powder appears in a flash and spirals viciously. Anna panics. She gets to her knees and seeks out the voice. She's overcast the entire space. A figure as white as the Change of Seasons is perfectly camouflaged in the sudden storm.

The Stranger has entered the room. Anna can barely make him out. He is calling for the Princess desperately. Of course, a scream lured him out of his hideout. The storm is pushing at him. The voice has eyes on the ice harvester too.

"It's okay!" Anna tries calling but her voice gets carried away in the wind. "We're safe." But the Princess is very unsure of that statement. If this cold is anywhere but the bedroom the King's men will come for them.

Anna leaps off the bed and heads towards the Stranger. As she nears him she sees an ice pick in hands. He brings it up, ready to attack. The blowing snow instantly couples with shards of ice. The Change of Seasons has weapons too.

Anna jumps out at the ice harvester. He swings at her but she anticipated his reaction and ducks down low wrapping her arms around his waist. Her momentum slams him into the wall. She grabs at the pick and lowers the weapon.

"Anna!" The stranger calls out in recognition as he takes in his naked attacker. "Have they come for us? Where is the Change of Seasons? Are you okay?" His questions come out like one long word.

"Everything was fine." Anna rips the pickaxe out of his hands. He's been scathed. The ice has sliced at this skin. Thin beads of blood trail his face. They don't fall down this face but are pushed across it in the same brash direction the heavy wind blows.

Anna pushes her body into him because the ice avoids her bare skin. He ducks his head into her shoulder accepting her protection.

"I thought you were in trouble." He says into her hold.

"I know," Anna responds. She knows that their hiding is over now. Her life with the Change of Seasons has been reduced to a handful of hours.

"Stay low, protect any exposed skin," Anna tells the ice harvester. She knows he does not need to be told. He can handle himself in a storm. "I'll try to put a stop to this."

With that Anna faces the wind. She can feel the voice losing her control of the tempest She's started. It slams up against Anna, no longer giving her a pass for being in the Change of Seasons' heart. The ice is dull now, pelting from above instead of pointed blades. Anna tries to cover her head with her arms as she advances to where she can safely assume she will find the voice.

She pushes towards the corner of her bedroom closest to the bed. She follows the walls. In all the white she finally makes out a burst of angry blue. She is curled into Herself just as Anna expected her to be. She's tiny, not fully covered by ice. She's spread her power over herself in the same places a knight's armour protects its master. Her hair rushes in the wind, blowing upwards as if the mighty gust is emanating from the cowering entity.

Anna could call out for Her but touch is a new tool she has with the voice. So once she reaches Her she drops her hand to cup Her face.

"I'm here," Anna reassures as the Change of Seasons lifts Her gaze to meet the Princess.

"It's alright. No one's come for us. Not yet." Anna kneels down in front of Her. She drops her forehead on the Change of Seasons' furrowed brow. "We're still safe."

The voice exhales a shaky breath. Her fear is not a look Anna likes and so she rubs her thumbs into Her temples waiting to bring back the simple glee She has worn freely for Anna.

"Are you hurt?" She asks Anna. The Princess has a mounting goose egg that proves her a liar as she shakes her head no. But Anna feels the temperature start to level out. The whipping of the wind settles as the voice takes in deep breaths. The visibility returns but the Change of Seasons' smile does not.

"Is everything alright?" the stranger asks. The voice tenses and pushes her back deeper into the corner. Anna shushes the frail being in her hands.

"Don't you worry. This is a friend. He's helped me. He's here to help us." Anna feels the stranger take tentative steps forward. She looks back at him and he has Anna's dress bunched up in his hands. She hasn't really thought about her nudity. The Princess stands and approaches the offering. The stranger closes his eyes and tilts his head away.

Anna yanks it out of his grab, detangling her cape from the bundle. A small thud hits the ground but Anna pays it no mind as she drapes her cloak over the Change of Seasons' shoulders. She accepts the covering with an unsure look, but since Anna has given it to Her the voice says nothing.

The Princess turns her bareback to the entity. With her own dress pressed against her front, she addresses the stranger. She wants to reprimand him but she knows she'd have done the same thing.

"How much damage do you think we've done?" The ice harvester does not register Anna's questioning. The Princess takes in the rising sky from out the balcony window. The peak of the North Mountain is in clear view. It is the only touch of snow in the panorama. It looks like the start of a picturesque summer morning.

"It's still nice out," Anna says hopefully. The voice doesn't pay her statement much mind either from her huddled corner.

Anna's words reach neither of her cellmates. The stranger has his focus on the leather-bound book that slipped out of the Princess of Arendelle's gown.

"Why do you have this?" He demands an answer. The meek look of culpability on his face when he approached is far gone.

"It's my father's," Anna answers. She snatches at it almost losing the grab covering her in her attempt. The Stranger does not let her have it.

"These are the names read out at the Annual Remembrance Memorial. You shouldn't have this. _She_ shouldn't be in possession of this." It is not lost on Anna that this has struck yet another chord on the ice harvester. Anna is aware that all Arendellians have likely directly had someone taken from them, overcome by the winter.

"That's not for you to say," Anna counters. She tries to go for the book again but the stranger holds it up high. She jumps for it but fails. The Princess lets go of her gown. She kicks her heel into the Stranger's shin. He fumbles slightly as he grimaces in pain. With a slight hop, the list of names is back in Anna's hands.

"That belongs to the families," the ice harvester claims.

"What is he talking about?" the voice asks Anna. Her curiosity has Her head up and out of Her shell but She is holding Herself more tightly as She watches the duo squabble.

"It's nothing," Anna dismisses. The Stranger, however, does not back down. He addresses the Change of Seasons with a pointed finger.

"That book honours every life taken by your winters," he presses hotly. The Change of Seasons' eyes go wide and jump over to the binding in Anna's hands. The stranger turns back to the Princess. "How dare you hide what she's done? How dare you try to erase them?"

"This isn't on Her." Anna wills herself to remain calm, for the voice's sake and Hers only. "She's not at fault."

"Can I see?" the voice tries to interject.

"You can say that because you've never carried a frozen corpse back into the castle." The ice harvester brings closed fists down to his thighs as he recounts his grief passionately.

"I've read the names. I understand better than you why they were lost." Anna sees why he is so ardent. Even looking at him almost proves his point. His clothing has remnants of ice embedded in the fibres. Melting onto him does not look ominous but the blood marring his face and even the back of his hands from trying to protect himself from the Change of Seasons makes Her look like a monster. She was just afraid, Anna reasons.

"How many?" The Change of Seasons remains ignored.

"If not the Change of Seasons herself then who? Who would you blame Anna?" For a long time the answer to that question, Anna felt was, she, herself. She has just tasted love and therefore knows better.

"Not who, what." The Stranger rolls his eyes at her.

"What then? What killed my comrades if not the winter."

"Fear." Anna is steadfast with her answer.

"That's a cop-out, Anna." He upturns his nose. His eyes wander towards the ceiling as he shakes his head, almost as if laughing with the Gods about her sureness.

"Oh, you think so? We were fine in this very room until you spooked us. But you didn't fear for your life did you? No, because you love me and you trust me. The swirling storm stopped for the exact same reason. Because the Change of Seasons and I love and trust each other. We can't blame the cold for what has happened in Arendelle."

"You hear that?" Anna turns back to the voice. It is against all of their chances of survival for the Change of Seasons to fall into shame, to fear what She has done and can do. "There is such a simple solution to the Winter. The only thing that's really hard to beat is fear."

Anna finishes by stepping back up to the ice harvester. "You were there the night, tell me where the fear came from and you'll know whose hands are red."

The Stranger drops his chin. He admits defeat with a slight nod of his head. He looks down at his own hands. Anna knows they are the cleanest in the room. She thinks about her will to survive this and vows to do anything in her power to assure her keeper stays as he is now.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"I'm sorry for all those you lost." Anna reaches her hand out to his shoulder. His gaze shoots up.

"Are you alright?" The ice harvester is looking past Anna. She whips around to see what has him suddenly concerned. The Change of Seasons' eyes are the only part of her peering out of the cloak. The material is visibly shaking as She bores her stare into the book in Anna's hands. The Princess drops it and falls onto her knees before Her. She pushes back the hood to reveal the voice's face. It contorted.

"I am scared, Anna. I'm going to keep doing it aren't l?"

"Once," Anna answers honestly. "You're going to do it once more. And we are going to get out of here and the only thing that's going to be left is love."

"I don't want to." The Princess of Arendelle knows they will fail without the Change of Seasons commanding their escape. She puts her hands over the cloak, pressing into each of Her shoulders.

"Are you hungry?" Anna feels cheap as she tries to reason with the voice's power.

"What?" She asks so innocently.

"Are you hungry now?" The Princess says again. She makes her tone firm.

"Very," the Change of Seasons admits with very little need to reflect.

"We can't survive here indefinitely like you did before. I mean sure you could ice up again and your body would want for nothing but I could never touch you. And I'm already pretty hungry too." The voice has not seen its own humanity in a long time. Anna can tell. The lonely years She spent while the Princess was in Corona took a great toll on Her. She is certain the armour has little to do with protection and was crafted to ice up the pain, to be less human, child, and sister. To more fully become the Change of Seasons.

"You're scared but we can't stay in this corner. Vermin like to stick to the walls. They'll reach us here eventually."

"I already feel like I'm covered in rats." The voice shivers again. Anna rubs the length of her arms trying to dispel the chill.

"But you're bigger than them. You don't have to be afraid, El. But it's okay if you are. Cause even if you run in fear you will crush them." The Change of Seasons pushes Her thin lips together. It's a small act but it proves Her confidence in the Princess.

"Like an elephant?" She offers up. If Anna agrees she knows that the two have just made a promise to one another. They are both willing to die for another.

"Exactly like an elephant." Now they are both willing to kill too.

Anna turns her head back at the Ice Harvester. He looks wary. He is scared of what the Princess has just made this all-powerful being agree to. Anna is willing to manipulate the fear to live a long life with the Change of Seasons.

"Where's my axe? We're leaving here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a month. My apologies, my baby elephants. I focused on finishing Equal Parts of a Whole (which is now complete and out of the way of this story. It turned out pretty okay, so if you haven't read it give it a try)
> 
> This is meant to be the second last chapter of Tiny Elephants. I will give you guys a heads up on my next post if the conclusion of the next chapter ends up being split. For now, brace yourself that my next post is the finale.
> 
> Thanks for your patience and your reviews and support. I would love to hear from you to get the strength to finish this thing just right.
> 
> PHEW! Let's do THIS!


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